"When do you go into that beastly old bank?" she asked. "First of the month. After all it won't be so much worse than being married." "You must be awfully hard up," she said once more regretfully. "Oh, I'm always hard up. Don't bother about that." She stooped forward and kissed him lightly, an unusual demonstration on her part, and stood brushing the crisp locks back from his forehead. He took her hand and pulled her down to kiss her in turn. "Really, mater," he observed, still holding her hand, "we're getting quite spoony. Does the idea of marrying Harry Bradish make you sentimental?" She smiled and did not answer, but withdrew her hand and returned to her seat by the window. She took up a bit of sewing, and folded down on the edge of the lawn a tiny hem. "When I am married," she observed, the faint suspicion of a blush coming into her cheek, "I can pay that money back to you. Harry is rich enough, and generous enough." Jack stopped in the lighting of a fresh cigarette, and regarded her keenly. "Mother," he said in a voice of new seriousness, "are you marrying him to get that money for me?" "I mean to get it for you," she returned, without looking up. Again he began to send rings of smoke to break on the ceiling above, and meanwhile she fixed her attention on her sewing. The noise of the carriages outside, the profanity of the English sparrows quarreling on the trees, and the sound of a distant street-organ playing "Cavalleria" came in through the open window. "Mother," he said, "I won't have it." "Won't have what?" "I won't have you marry Harry Bradish." "Why not?" "Do you think," he urged, with some heat, "that I don't see through the whole thing? You are bound to help me out, and I won't have you do it." The widow let her sewing fall into her lap, and turned her face to the window. "How will you help it?" she asked softly. "I'll stop it in one way or another. I tell you--" But she turned toward him a face full of confusion and laughter. "Oh, Jack, you old goose, I've been fond of Harry Bradish for years, only I didn't dare show it because--" "Because what?" "Because Sibley Langdon was so nasty if I did," she returned, her tone hardening. "You don't know," she went on, the tone changing again like a flute-note, "what a perfect dear Harry is. I've teased him, and snubbed him, and bullied him, and treated him generally like a fiend, and he's been as patient, and as sweet--Why, Jack, he's a saint beside me! He's awkward, and as stupid as a frog, but he's as good as gold." Jack's face had darkened at the mention of Langdon, but it cleared again, and his sunny smile came back once more. He sent out a great cloud of smoke with an entire disregard of the possibilities of artistic ring-making which he sacrificed, and chuckled gleefully. "All right, mater," he said, "if that's the state of things I've nothing more to say. You may even fleece him for my benefit if you want to."