"No," she answered, slowly. "No. When he writes a letter to me, I will read it. Not before."
"Oh, you are hard on Frank," Evelyn protested. "How can he write to you? Didn't you say you would have nothing more to do with him, unless he gave up his profession?"
"Profession! Has an actor a profession?" grandmother cried. "This is the first time I ever heard it called by that name. I said he was to choose between his mother and a child's mad whim, and he made his choice."
She picked up the picture and looked at it with tears in her eyes.
"I could forgive him anything but acting," she said. "Sometimes I think I could even forgive him that. I do so long to see him again."
Evelyn slipped her arm about grandmother.
"He will come back," she cried, consolingly.
"Never," grandmother replied, with a despairing glance at the empty street. "Don't I know him, Evelyn? Man and boy? He is as stubborn as I am."
"Would the little boy play with me, grandma, if he came back?" I asked, excitedly.
They both looked at me, but Evelyn was the only one who smiled.