"What shall we do to-morrow, Jim?" inquired Cleland Senior, after a long pause.
"Do you mean just you and me, Father?"
"Oh, yes. Steve will be busy with her lessons. And, in the evening, nine-thirty is her bedtime."
The boy said, with a sigh of unconscious relief:
"I need a lot of things. We'll go to the shops first. Then we'll lunch together, then we can take in a movie, then we'll dine all by ourselves, and then go to the theatre. What do you say, Father?"
"Fine!" said his father, with the happy thrill which comes to fathers whose growing sons still prefer their company to the company of anybody else.
CHAPTER VI
To Cleland Senior it seemed as though Jim's Easter vacation ended before it had fairly begun; so swiftly sped the blessed days together.
Already the morning of his son's departure for school had dawned, and he realized it with the same mental sinking, the same secret dismay and painful incredulity which he always experienced when the dreaded moment for parting actually arrived.
As usual, he prepared to accompany his son to the railway station. It happened not to occur to him that Stephanie might desire to go.