"Have you had a pretty good holiday, Jim?"
"Fine, father!"
"That's good. That's as it should be. We've enjoyed a pretty good time together, my son; haven't we?"
"Great! It was a dandy vacation!"
There came another silence. On the boy's face lingered a slight retrospective smile, as he mentally reviewed the two weeks now ending with the impending departure for school. Certainly he had had a splendid time. His father had engineered all sorts of parties and amusements for him—schoolboy gatherings at the Ice Rink; luncheons and little dances in their own home, to which school comrades and children of old friends were bidden; trips to the Bronx, to the Aquarium, to the Natural History Museum; wonderful evenings at home together.
The boy had gone with his father to see the "Wizard of Oz," to see Nazimova in "The Comet"—a doubtful experiment, but in line with theories of Cleland Senior—to see "The Fall of Port Arthur" at the Hippodrome; to hear Calvé at the Opera.
Together they had strolled on Fifth Avenue, viewed the progress of the new marble tower then being built on Madison Square, had lunched together at Delmonico's, dined at Sherry's, motored through all the parks, visited Governor's Island and the Navy Yard—the latter rendezvous somewhat empty of interest since the great battle fleet had started on its pacific voyage around the globe.
Always they had been together since the boy returned from Saint James school for the Christmas holidays; and Cleland Senior had striven to fill every waking hour of his son's day with something pleasant to be remembered.
Always at breakfast he had read aloud the items of interest—news concerning President Roosevelt—the boy's hero—and his administration; Governor Hughes and his administration; the cumberous coming of Mr. Taft from distant climes; local squabbles concerning projected subways. All that an intelligent and growing boy ought to know and begin to think about, Cleland Senior read aloud at the breakfast table—for this reason, and also to fill in every minute with pleasant interest lest the dear grief, now two years old, and yet forever fresh, creep in between words and threaten the silences between them with sudden tears.
But two years is a long, long time in the life of the young—in the life of a fourteen-year-old boy; and yet, the delicate shadow of his mother still often dimmed for him the sunny sparkle of the winter's holiday. It fell across his clear young eyes now, where he sat thinking, and made them sombre and a deeper brown.