“Why—­why, Mother!  Don’t!  Don’t, Blonde.  We’ll see each other every few weeks.  I’ll be coming to New York to see the sights, like the rest of the rubes, and I suppose the noise and lights will confuse me so that I’ll be glad to get back to the sylvan quiet of Chicago.  And then you’ll run out there, eh?  We’ll have regular bats, Mrs. Mack.  Dinner and the theater and supper!  Yes?”

“Yes,” said Emma McChesney, in muffled tones that totally lacked enthusiasm.

“Chicago’s really only a suburb of New York, anyway, these days, and—­”

Emma McChesney’s head came up sharply.  “Look here, son.  If you’re going to live in Chicago I advise you to cut that suburb talk, and sort of forget New York.  Chicago’s quite a village, for an inland settlement, even if it has only two or three million people, and a lake as big as all outdoors.  That kind of talk won’t elect you to the University Club, son.”

So they talked, all through supper and during the evening.  Rather, Jock talked and his mother listened, interrupting with only an occasional remark when the bubble of the boy’s elation seemed to grow too great.

Quite suddenly Jock was silent.  After the almost incessant rush of conversation quiet settled down strangely on the two seated there in the living-room with its soft-shaded lamps.  Jock picked up a magazine, twirled its pages, put it down, strolled into his own room, and back again.

“Mother,” he said suddenly, standing before her, “there was a time when you were afraid I wasn’t going to pan out, wasn’t there?”

“Not exactly afraid, dear, just a little doubtful, perhaps.”

Jock smiled a tolerant, forgiving smile.  “You see, Mother, you didn’t understand, that’s all.  A woman doesn’t.  I was all right.  A man would have realized that.  I don’t mean, dear, that you haven’t always been wonderful, because you have.  But it takes a man to understand a man.  When you thought I was going bad on your hands I was just developing, that’s all.  Remember that time in Chicago, Mother?”

“Yes,” answered Emma McChesney, “I remember.”

“Now a man would have understood that that was only kid foolishness.  If a fellow’s got the stuff in him it’ll show up, sooner or later.  If I hadn’t had it in me I wouldn’t be going to Chicago as manager of the Berg, Shriner Western office, would I?”

“No, dear.”

Jock looked at her.  In an instant he was all contrition and tenderness.  “You’re tired.  I’ve talked you to death, haven’t I?  Lordy, it’s midnight!  And I want to get down early to-morrow.  Conference with Mr. Berg, and Hupp.”  He tried not to sound too important.

Emma McChesney took his head between her two hands and kissed him once on the lips, then, standing a-tiptoe, kissed his eyelids with infinite gentleness as you kiss a baby’s eyes.  Then she brought his cheek up against hers.  And so they stood for a moment, silently.