"But I think," the little lady went on, after a pause, "we didn't know how hard it was for him. I understand better now. Sometimes, though he doesn't suspect, I hear it in his playing. Then I wonder if we were wiser than he--and if I was selfish. Of course, the music would have taken him away so much and it would have been very lonely for me--and very dark. Sometimes I wonder if that wasn't his real reason for giving up his music." David was silent. "You say nothing." Even without eyes to give meaning, her smile was wistful as a child's. "Are you thinking he would have been happier--or better off--in the work he wanted than in taking care of me?" "I think," said David, "he is happy because he stayed with you." "He has said so himself." She sighed. "I wonder--I wonder!" For a little they said nothing, David thinking very hard. "And now," she said at last, "you may tell me what you think of Miss Summers." "Why," he answered, "she seems very attractive." "Jonathan has led me to believe so. And a gentlewoman, should you say?" "I think so," said David, who had not thought of it at all. "Oh, yes, undoubtedly." "That is my opinion. And she sings very nicely." Jonathan's mother sighed again. There was a dinner that included creations not found in cheap boarding-houses: fried chicken, for example, tender and flaky and brown, and crisp waffles with honey, and sweet potatoes in the southern style. It was cooked and served by a white-haired old negress whose round eyes popped with pride at the destruction David wrought. She listened shamelessly, fat bosom aquiver, to her radiant master's quips, commenting, "Mistuh Jon'than,--_chuckle_--ef yo' ain'--_chuckle_--de beatenes' evuh!" and warned David in a stage whisper to save room for a miracle of a pudding to come. Mrs. Radbourne opened the casket of her memory to display several well polished anecdotes of a day when the world must have been very bright indeed, full of light and color; chiefest jewel of which concerned a meeting with the elder Booth, from which occasion her husband--that very firm man--had emerged with credit. If, as some wise man has said, wit is all a matter of the right audience, then David must have been very witty indeed. And across the table from him sat a pair of slate-gray eyes, still aglow with that sense of adventure. Then there were cigars, mild and very good, smoked on the porch; both ladies protesting that they liked the fragrance of tobacco. And then the host, with the air of having come to the real business of the meeting, rose and said: "Shall we have some music now?" "Oh, by all means!" said David politely, wondering how much credence he ought to place in the advance notices. They went into the parlor, where Jonathan turned to Miss Summers, "Do you feel like singing this evening?" "Yes," she said, and went at once to the piano.