Dan recovered himself, smiled, and patted his son’s shoulder. “I expect so, maybe. We’ll drive down to our agents on the avenue before we go home.” And at this Henry proved that he could still show some animation. He sprang up, shouting. “Ya-ay!” he cried. “_Vive le sport!_” And he leaped into the big Morgan limousine that stood waiting for them in the cluttered driveway. “Come on!” he shouted. “I’ll show you how to shoot a little life into this old town!” Rising from her nap, an hour later, Lena looked from her window and saw them returning. Henry was still animated, talking busily, and, as they came into the house, seemed willing to bear the weight of his father’s arm across his shoulders. The mother, looking down upon the pair, smiled thoughtfully to herself;—she was not more indulgent with the boy than his father was; but she knew that Henry was more hers than he was his father’s. He had always been so, because of some chord of subtle understanding struck by her nature and Henry’s. She had sometimes been in a temper with him when he was a noisy little boy, but as he grew older she had begun to feel only amusement over his naughtinesses, because she understood them so well;—she laughed at him sometimes, but had long since ceased to chide him. She had no blame for him, and she knew that he would never find fault with her, no matter what she did. They had a mysterious comprehension of each other—a comprehension so complete that they had never needed to speak of it. She heard him chattering to his grandmother in the hall downstairs, and knew by his tone that his father had bought him something, of which the boy would presently tell her;—she remained standing beside the closed window, waiting for him to come in with his news. Then, as she stood there, a gust drove down a multitude of soot flakes from the smokestack of an apartment house that had been built near by, on the cross street just south of the Oliphants’, while she was away. After the soot, which flecked the window, the smoke itself descended, enveloping the house so thickly that the window became opaque. Sounds were not shut out, however, and she could still hear all too well the chattering of a steam drill at work across the street, where a public garage was being built. She frowned at the noise, for the drill had disturbed her sleep; and so had the almost unceasing rumble of trucks passing the house; and so had the constant yelp of automobile signals rasping at one another for right of way. The smoke thinned out, revealing the busy street that had been so different when she had first looked forth upon it from this same window, a bride. She remembered how quiet it had been then—and suddenly she spoke aloud. “Well, I’m still here!”