“My mother,” interrupted Jock, suddenly, and then stopped, surprised at himself.

“Your mother,” said Bartholomew Berg slowly, “is one woman in a million.  Don’t ever forget that.  They don’t turn out models like Emma McChesney more than once every blue moon.”

Jock got to his feet slowly.  He felt heavy, old.  “I suppose,” he began, “that this ends my—­my advertising career.”

“Ends it!” The Old Man stood up and put a heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder.  “It only begins it.  Unless you want to lie down and quit.  Do you?”

“Quit!” cried Jock McChesney.  “Quit!  Not on your white space!”

“Good!” said Bartholomew Berg, and took Jock McChesney’s hand in his own great friendly grasp.

An instinct as strong as that which had made him blatant in his hour of triumph now caused him to avoid, in his hour of defeat, the women-folk before whom he would fain be a hero.  He avoided Grace Galt all that long, dreary afternoon.  He thought wildly of staying down-town for the evening, of putting off the meeting with his mother, of avoiding the dreaded explanations, excuses, confessions.

But when he let himself into the flat at five-thirty the place was very quiet, except for Annie, humming in a sort of nasal singsong of content in the kitchen.

He flicked on the light in the living-room.  A new magazine had come.  It lay on the table, its bright cover staring up invitingly.  He ran through its pages.  By force of habit he turned to the back pages.  Ads started back at him—­clothing ads, paint ads, motor ads, ads of portable houses, and vacuum cleaners—­and toilette preparations.  He shut the magazine with a vicious slap.

He flicked off the light again, for no reason except that he seemed to like the dusk.  In his own bedroom it was very quiet.

He turned on the light there, too, then turned it off.  He sat down at the edge of his bed.  How was it in the stories?  Oh, yes!  The cub always started out on an impossibly difficult business stunt and came back triumphant, to be made a member of the firm at once.

A vision of his own roseate hopes and dreams rose up before him.  It grew very dark in the little room, then altogether dark.  Then an impudent square of yellow from a light turned on in the apartment next door flung itself on the bedroom floor.  Jock stared at it moodily.

A key turned in the lock.  A door opened and shut.  A quick step.  Then:  “Jock!” A light flashed in the living-room.

Jock sat up suddenly.  He opened his mouth to answer.  There issued from his throat a strange and absurd little croak.

“Jock!  Home?”

“Yes,” answered Jock, and straightened up.  But before he could flick on his own light his mother stood in the doorway, a tall, straight, buoyant figure.

“I got your wire and—­Why, dear!  In the dark!  What—­”

“Must have fallen asleep, I guess,” muttered Jock.  Somehow he dreaded to turn on the lights.