"No," he said, in a low voice. "No, Lil, I shall not go again."
She kissed him, and as she did so, whispered, anxiously:
"And—and—Stella, Ley?"
His face contracted with a frown of pain and trouble.
"That is all past," he said, using his mother's words; and she kissed him again.
"How thin and worn you look. Oh, Ley!" she murmured, with sorrowful, loving reproach.
He smiled with a touch of bitterness.
"Do I? Well, I will wax fat and grow mirthful for the future," he said, rising. "There is the dinner bell."
"Come to me afterward, Ley," she pleaded, as she let him go, and he promised.