"Not for me!"
Mrs. Enslee pondered a moment before she took up the debate again. "But do you think she loves you as much as you'd like to be loved?"
Willie laughed. "Huh! nobody ever loved me like that; nobody ever will."
"Except your mother," said Mrs. Enslee, laying her hand on his hair. Willie hated to have his hair smoothed, and he edged away, laughingly bitterly.
"I'm afraid even you've found me—er—unattractive, mother. I couldn't have been much to be proud of even as a little brat. I never had a chum as a boy. I never had a girl—er—sweetheart. It wasn't that I didn't like other people, but other people can't seem to—er—like me."
He pondered the mystery so tragically that Mrs. Enslee caressed him, and said: "You mustn't say that. I adore you."
Willie eyed her with a cynical stare. "Don't be—er—literary, mother. I remember when I was a little boy how lonely I used to get in this big old house. Poor father was so busy heaping up money I hardly knew him by sight. Once he—er—passed me on the street and didn't speak to me! Then at night you used to give big dinners. I had to eat early and alone up in the—er—nursery. But I used to lie awake for hours, and when the doors opened I could hear laughter. And often there was music. You used to go down to dinner after I had gone to bed."
"But I always stopped in to kiss you good night, didn't I?" the mother urged, in self-defense.
"Sometimes you would forget," Willie sighed. "Then I'd be left there alone with the governess. I didn't want to—er—speak French to a governess. I wanted to—er—talk to my mother. And when you did stop in to kiss me, your lips sometimes used to—er—leave red marks on my cheek."
"Willie!" Mrs. Enslee gasped; but he went on: