"More lines. Here,"—she touched his forehead,—"and here,"—she touched his eyes.
"Lines!" Jock swung to face a mirror. "Good! I'm so infernally young-looking that no one takes me seriously. It's darned hard trying to convince people you're a captain of finance when you look like an errand boy."
From the center of the room Mrs. McChesney watched the boy as he surveyed himself in the glass. And as she gazed there came a frightened look into her eyes. It was gone in a minute, and in its place came a curious little gleam, half amused, half pugnacious.
"Jock McChesney, if I thought that you meant half of what you've said to-night about honor, and ethics, and all that, I'd—"
"Spank me, I suppose," said the young six-footer.
"No," and all the humor had fled, "I—Jock, I've never said much to you about your father. But I think you know that he was what he was to the day of his death. You were just about eight when I made up my mind that life with him was impossible. I said then—and you were all I had, son—that I'd rather see you dead than to have you turn out to be a son of your father. Don't make me remember that wish, Jock."
Two quick steps and his arms were about her. His face was all contrition. "Why—Mother! I didn't mean—You see this is business, and I'm crazy to make good, and it's such a fight—"
"Don't I know it?" demanded Emma McChesney. "I guess your mother hasn't been sitting home embroidering lunchcloths these last fifteen years." She lifted her head from the boy's shoulder. "And now, son, considering me, not as your doting mother, but in my business capacity as secretary of the T.A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, suppose you reveal to me the inner workings of this plan of yours. I'd like to know if you really are the advertising wizard that you think you are."
So it was that long after Annie's dinner dishes had ceased to clatter in the kitchen; long after she had put her head in at the door to ask, "Aigs 'r cakes for breakfast?" long after those two busy brains should have rested in sleep, the two sat at either side of the light-flooded table, the face of one glowing as he talked, the face of the other sparkling as she listened. And at midnight:
"Why, you infant wonder!" exclaimed Emma McChesney.