"First-rate. It seems good to get on my legs again." He was looking eagerly at the boy, taking in his fresh young strength.... It had been several days since Julian came; but Herman Medfield was not yet used to his being there, or to the little proud feeling that came over him as he looked at this young man who was his son. He had never thought Julian was handsome. But something seemed to have happened to him.... He carried himself more like a man; and there was a look behind the lines of his face.... He thought of the boy's mother, as he watched it.... Europe had brought out the best that was in him. It had been a wise move—sending him off like that, to get him out of Mrs. Cawein's way.... And then it came to him that Julian was looking even better than the day he arrived.... Perhaps, after all, he was fond of his old dad! They had had many talks together—and had sat silent for long spaces of quiet; and the boy came and went as if his father's room were home to him. Every one in the hospital had come to know the quick step and light figure and the laugh that ran through the hall.... He went across the town to the vacant house to sleep. But his meals were served with his father's—when he could persuade Aunt Jane to send them in—and when he could not coax her to send in the extra tray, he went to a restaurant near by.
Aunt Jane and he had been friends from the minute he held out his hand to her, and she had taken it in hers and patted it and looked at him out of her muslin cap. "You're just the age of my boy," she had said, looking at him. "I always wonder what he'd be doing now—if I could see him."
And the young man had reached up an arm—before she could catch the meaning of his look—and thrown it around her neck and kissed her, just under the muslin border of her cap. "I guess that's what he would do first," he said. And Aunt Jane's eyes had filled with quick tears as she turned away.
"That's great foolishness!" she had said softly.
But the boy had won his place; and he was always asking for her when he came. She appeared now in the doorway with a card in her hand—looking at it doubtfully. Her glance ran to the figure in the window in its stately dressing-gown, and returned again to the little black-edged card.
The young man's eye fell on it and his eyebrows lifted a trifle. He came over.
"For me?" He held out his hand.
She ignored the hand and passed on to the millionaire, extending the card. Her face was impersonal and severe.
The boy's quick laugh broke across it.