“Do you—do you remember your mother?” asked Jacqueline, in a low voice.
“No,” answered Jack, fixing his dark eyes seriously on Jacqueline. “I have a miniature of her that my father gave me when I was twenty-one. He keeps her picture in his room, and on the anniversary of her death he spends the day alone. Once in a great while he has talked to me about her.”
Jacqueline glanced at Throckmorton with a new interest. He was still talking to Judith. The pleased look on the major’s face aroused the mischievous devil in Jack. In five minutes Jacqueline, to her disgust and disappointment, found herself talking to Dr. Wortley, while Jack had established himself on the other side of Judith. Neither Throckmorton nor Judith was pleased to see him.
“You ought to hear my father tell about some of his campaigns ’way back in the fifties,” remarked Jack. “It’s a good while ago, but the major isn’t sensitive about his age like some men.”
Perhaps the major was not, but Jack’s observation was received in grim silence.
“I am sure Major Throckmorton can tell us a great many interesting things,” answered Judith, smiling involuntarily—“particularly to us who lead such quiet lives, and who know so little. I sometimes wonder how I shall ever be able to bring up my boy; I have so few ideas, and they seem to be all rusting away.”
“I thought you were a great reader,” said Throckmorton.
“I like to read, but—”
“My father is a Trojan of a reader,” continued Jack, “and his eyesight is really wonderful.”
At this the major, with the cast in his eye very obvious, rose and walked over to where Jacqueline was sitting. Jack had accomplished his object, and ran his father out of the field. But Judith felt a sense of bitter disappointment. However, with the sweetness of her nature, she overcame her resentful feelings toward Jack, and, in spite of his boyish disposition to make people uncomfortable, really began to like him.