The amused look faded from Mrs. Corner's eyes. "He was my only son and no one can take his place. No one knows how terribly I miss him."
"Well," said Jack, forgetting to be propitiatory, and somehow resenting this speech, "I'm sure we couldn't ever get a new father any more than you could get a new son, and I reckon my mother misses him as much as you do."
Mrs. Corner looked startled. "I suppose so; I suppose so," she murmured. "It is true that others have claims."
Jack did not quite take this in but she followed up her speech by adding: "I suppose you missed your husband when he died, didn't you?"
"Oh, child, child, what are you saying?" said her grandmother in a tremulous voice.
Jack regretted this remark seeing her grandmother's agitation. "I don't suppose I ought to have said that. Was it impolite?" she asked. "I wanted to be very polite."
"Why?"
"Oh, because I——" she hesitated. "I must go now. I have finished the party; it was very nice indeed."
Mrs. Corner looked at her with sudden suspicion. "Did Nancy send you over here?" she said.
"Nobody sent me. I didn't tell any one I was coming."