"Why?"
"Because I love her."
"You'll have that kind of pip several times before you pick the right one, Jack."
"No; I'm like you."
"What's that?"
"I say that I am like you, dad.... I don't believe there was ever anybody but mother. Was there?"
"How about that little Beaumont girl you met at Hot Springs?" asked his father.
"I taught her to shoot a pistol. I liked her, but that was all. Silvette is different."
Somehow, the memory of a girl he had once taught came into Mr. Rivett's mind—Betty Lawrence—who smiled as nobody else ever had smiled except her own son—years afterwards—years and years afterwards.
He raised his sunken head and looked hard at his son.