That evening, as I was washing my hands before dinner and cheerfully whistling _Hiawatha_, I became conscious that Jones was lolling back on a sofa at the dark end of the room. What particularly arrested my attention was a groan--preceded by a pack of heartrending sighs. It worried me--when everything seemed to be going so well. He had every right to be whistling _Hiawatha_, too. "What's the matter, Jones?" said I. He keeled over on the sofa, and groaned louder than ever. "It isn't possible--that she's refused you?" I exclaimed. He muttered something about his mother. "Well, what about your mother?" I said. "Westoby," he returned, "I guess I was the worst kind of fool ever to put my foot into this house." That was nice news, wasn't it? Just as I was settling in my head to buy that Seventy-second Street place, and alter the basement into a garage! "You see, old man, my mother would never consent to my marrying Eleanor. I'm in the position of having to choose between her and the woman I love. And I owe so much to my mother, Westoby. She stinted herself for years to get me through college; she hardly had enough to eat; she...." Then he groaned a lot more. "I can't think that your mother--a mother like yours, Jones--would consent to stand between you and your lifelong happiness. It's morbid--that's what I call it--morbid, just to dream of such a thing." "There's Bertha," he quavered. "Great Scott, and who's Bertha?" "The girl my mother chose for me two years ago--Bertha McNutt, you know. She'd really prefer me not to marry at all, but if I must--it's Bertha, Westoby--Bertha or nothing!" "It's too late to say that now, old fellow." "It's not too late for me to go home this very night." "Well, Jones," I broke out, "I can't think you'd do such a caddish thing as that. Think it over for a minute. You come down here; you sweep that unfortunate girl off her feet; you make love to her with the fury of a stage villain; you force her to betray her very evident partiality for you--and then you have the effrontery to say: 'Good-by. I'm off.'" "My mother--" he began. "You simply can not act so dishonorably, Jones." He sat silent for a little while. "My mother--" he started in again finally. "Surely your mother loves you?" I demanded. "That's the terrible part of it, Westoby, she--" "Pooh!" "She stinted herself to get me through col--" "Then why did you ever come here?" "That's just the question I'm asking myself now." "I don't see that you have any right to assume all that about your mother, anyway. Eleanor Van Coort is a woman of a thousand--unimpeachable social position--a little fortune of her own--accomplished, handsome, charming, sought after--why, if you managed to win such a girl as that your mother would walk on air." "No, she wouldn't. Bertha--" "You're a pretty cheap lover," I said. "I don't set up to be a little tin hero, but I'd go through fire and water for _my_ girl. Good heavens, love is love, and all the mothers--"