I took a seat at his side, and for a minute or two he punched the earth with a stick, as though uncertain how to open his subject.
"I guess you're as much awake as I am, Frank," he said at length, "so you know what's on the books."
"You mean about my father?" I was going to add, "and your mother," but I stopped; someway it seemed out of place. But Jack filled it in,—"And my mother."
Then we both sat silent for awhile.
"Has he said anything about it to you?" I ventured, "He hasn't mentioned it to me."
"No," said Jack. Then, with one of his unexpected touches of humor,—"I'm not sure that he knows about it yet. But mother does."
"Well, it's all right, isn't it?" I said, after we had had our laugh. "Your mother has been pretty much a mother to Marjorie and me since our own left us. She's O.K. I'm not complaining."
"Neither am I," Jack agreed, "so far as they are concerned. But just how about us? We've got to get out."
"Why?"
Jack turned his full blue eyes on me with a sort of pity. "Do you think Marjorie is going to play second fiddle to a new mother? You don't know your sister, Frank."