Jock smiled a tolerant, forgiving smile. "You see, Mother, you didn't understand, that's all. A woman doesn't. I was all right. A man would have realized that. I don't mean, dear, that you haven't always been wonderful, because you have. But it takes a man to understand a man. When you thought I was going bad on your hands I was just developing, that's all. Remember that time in Chicago, Mother?"
"Yes," answered Emma McChesney, "I remember."
"Now a man would have understood that that was only kid foolishness. If a fellow's got the stuff in him it'll show up, sooner or later. If I hadn't had it in me I wouldn't be going to Chicago as manager of the Berg, Shriner Western office, would I?"
"No, dear."
Jock looked at her. In an instant he was all contrition and tenderness. "You're tired. I've talked you to death, haven't I? Lordy, it's midnight! And I want to get down early to-morrow. Conference with Mr. Berg, and Hupp." He tried not to sound too important.
Emma McChesney took his head between her two hands and kissed him once on the lips, then, standing a-tiptoe, kissed his eyelids with infinite gentleness as you kiss a baby's eyes. Then she brought his cheek up against hers. And so they stood for a moment, silently.
Ten minutes later there came the sound of blithe whistling from Jock's room. Jock always whistled when he went to bed and when he rose. Even these years of living in a New York apartment had not broken him of the habit. It was a cheerful, disconnected whistling, sometimes high and clear, sometimes under the breath, sometimes interspersed with song, and sometimes ceasing altogether at critical moments, say, during shaving, or while bringing the four-in-hand up tight and snug under the collar. It was one of those comfortable little noises that indicate a masculine presence; one of those pleasant, reassuring, man-in-the-house noises that every woman loves.
Emma McChesney, putting herself to bed in her room across the hall, found herself listening, brush poised, lips parted, as though to the exquisite strains of celestial music. There came the thump of a shoe on the floor. An interval of quiet. Then another thump. Without having been conscious of it, Emma McChesney had grown to love the noises that accompanied Jock's retiring and rising. His dressing was always signalized by bangings and thumpings. His splashings in the tub were tremendous. His morning plunge could be heard all over the six-room apartment. Mrs. McChesney used to call gayly through the door:
"Mercy, Jock! You sound like a school of whales coming up for air."
"You'll think I'm a school of sharks when it comes to breakfast," Jock would call back. "Tell Annie to make enough toast, Mum. She's the tightest thing with the toast I ever did—"