Marion was as unfeignedly glad to see him as he was to see her, with this difference--that he did not know how he made her feel, but he knew she somehow made him feel like the Prodigal Son, only, of course, he was not down and out--quite the contrary. Through the dinner it was made plain to Tommy that he was one of the Willetts family. At the end, as he did not smoke, he followed Marion into the library. She assured herself that he had a comfortable chair by insisting upon his taking her own favorite, found another for herself, and then she said to him, eagerly: “Tell me all about it!” Tommy, who had spoken of nothing else at the table but his Dayton experiences, said, simply: “I am sorry I didn't send you the long letter I wrote you when I thought I was fired.” “No; you didn't keep your promise. I expected to hear all about it. I knew you'd much rather write to Rivington than to me; but I also thought”--she paused, and then looked him frankly in the eyes--“I thought you would be so lonely and homesick that you'd like to write to all your friends, to remind yourself that you had them. I suppose you were too busy?” She looked as if she expected him to agree with her. There was but one excuse, and she herself had given it to him and he accepted it. “Of course, I had to hustle,” he said; and then he blushed to think of the easy time he had in Dayton. Everybody expected him to be a slave, a sweat-shop worker, and pitied him accordingly. The reaction made him say, “I'll tell you the whole story, if you don't think it will bore you.” “You men are always fishing for excuses to do what you ought to be dying to do anyhow. Go on, and don't skip anything.” And Tommy gladly began the epic narrative of his Dayton life, barring only the secret. He told it not only honestly, but in detail. That she was as interested as he was plain, until he began to fear that he was making himself into a hero. But it was too late to alter the portrait, so to preserve his self-respect he began to tell her all about Thompson and Thompson's dreams and Thompson's plans. “Tommy,” she exclaimed, excitedly, “he is a wonderful man. I had no idea business was like that. And you are the luckiest boy in the world to work in such a place.” “Yes, and it was by a fluke that I landed the job.” “I don't care. It was the luckiest thing that ever happened, even if it took you away from home.” “I suppose it was, but let me tell you it was mighty tough at first.” And he told her how he had fought homesickness, so that he actually believed it. And naturally she also believed him. “You might have written,” she reproached him. “If you had read the letters I wanted to write but didn't, you would have had to put in eight hours a day. It was considerate of me not to, don't you think?” “But you promised you would.”