when she heard the front door open (Winnebago
rarely locked its doors). She was surprised to feel her heart beating
rapidly. He was trying to be quiet, and was making a great deal of
noise about it. His shoes and the squeaky fifth stair alone would have
convicted him. The imp of perversity in Molly Brandeis made her smile,
angry as she was, at the thought of how furious he must be at that
stair.

"Theodore!" she called quietly, just as he was tip-toeing past her room.

"Yeh."

"Come in here. And turn on the light."

He switched on the light and stood there in the doorway. Molly Brandeis,
sitting up in bed in the chilly room, with her covers about her, was
conscious of a little sick feeling, not at what he had done, but that
a son of hers should ever wear the sullen, defiant, hang-dog look that
disfigured Theodore's face now.

"Bauer's?"

A pause. "Yes."

"Why?"

"I just stopped in there for a minute after the concert. I didn't mean
to stay. And then Bauer introduced me around to everybody. And then they
asked me to play, and--"

"And you played badly."

"Well, I didn't have my own violin."

"No football game Saturday. And no pocket money this week. Go to bed."

He went, breathing hard, and muttering a little under his breath. At
breakfast next morning Fanny plied him with questions and was furious at
his cool uncommunicativeness.

"Was it wonderful, Theodore? Did he play--oh--like an angel?"

"Played all right. Except the `Swan' thing. Maybe he thought it was too
easy, or something, but I thought he murdered it. Pass the toast, unless
you want it all."

It was not until the following autumn that Theodore went to New York.
The thing that had seemed so impossible was arranged. He was to live
in Brooklyn with a distant cousin of Ferdinand Brandeis, on a business
basis, and he was to come into New York three times a week for his
lessons. Mrs. Brandeis took him as far as Chicago, treated him to an
extravagant dinner, put him on the train and with difficulty stifled the
impulse to tell all the other passengers in the car to look after her
Theodore. He looked incredibly grown up and at ease in his new suit and
the hat that they had wisely bought in Chicago. She did not cry at all
(in the train), and she kissed him only twice, and no man can ask more
than that of any mother.

Molly Brandeis went back to Winnebago and the store with her shoulders a
little more consciously squared, her jaw a little more fi