"Yes, I 'm sure it would have seemed like anything but Christmas to you in New York with your father in Europe; you must miss him so."
Jack felt himself blush in the moonlight at the remembrance that he had seen his father but little in the last three years, and did not know what it was in reality to miss him. He never remembered to have missed anything or anybody but his mother, and that indefinite something in his life which he had not yet put himself earnestly to seek.
"I suppose you 'll be shocked, Miss Blossom, but I don't really miss my father. I 'm only awfully glad to see him when I get the chance--which is n't often. He 's such a busy man with railroads and syndicates and real estate interests. I wonder often how he can find time to write me even twice a month, which he has done regularly ever since--" he stopped abruptly.
"Since what?" asked Rose, innocently.
"Since my mother died," said Jack, in a hard, dry voice that served to cover his feeling.
"Yes," Rose nodded sympathetically, "Hazel told me." Then--for Rose's love for her own mother was something bordering on adoration--she said softly, under her breath, but with her whole heart in her voice; "Oh, I don't see how you could bear it--how you can live without her!"
"I don't," Jack replied with a break in his voice, "not really live, you know. I've always felt it, but never realized it until last night, when I stood out on the veranda and looked in at the window at you--all. Then I knew I 'd been hungry for that sort of thing for the last seven years--"
Now Rose's heart was swelling with pity for the loneliness of the tall, young fellow swinging along beside her, and at once her inner eyes were opened to see a, to her, startling fact. She turned suddenly towards him.
"Is that why you kissed Martie last night, and came up here to us?" she demanded rather breathlessly.
"Yes;" Jack had forgotten his scheme, and was in dead earnest now.