“Enjoyed it!” said Jack.  “She won’t like Paradise in comparison.”

“And you’ve been a good boy,” said Mrs. Rosscott, regarding him merrily.  “You’ve played your part well.”

He rose to his feet and put his hand to his temple.

“I salute my general,” he said.  “I was well trained in the maneuver.”

“It’s odd,” said Mrs. Rosscott thoughtfully.  “It was really so simple.  We are only women after all, whether it is I—­or Aunt Mary—­or all the rest of the world.  We do so crave the knowledge that someone cares for us—­for our hours—­for our pleasures.  It isn’t the bonbons—­it’s that someone troubled to buy the bonbons because he thought that they would please us.”

“Doesn’t a man have the same feeling?” Jack asked.  “It isn’t the tea we come for—­it’s the knowledge that someone bothers to make it and sugar it and cream it.”

“I wasn’t laughing,” said she.

“I wasn’t laughing either,” said he.

“But it’s true,” she went on, “and I think the solution of many unhappy puzzles lies there.  Don’t forget if you ever have a wife to pay lots of attention to her.”

“I always have paid lots of attention to her, haven’t I?” he demanded.

Mrs. Rosscott shook her head.

“We won’t discuss that,” she said.  “We’ll stick to Aunt Mary.  Aunt Mary is a rock whose foundation is firm; when it comes to your relations toward other women—­” she stopped, shrugging her shoulders, and he understood.

“But it’s going to come out all right now, I’m sure,” she went on after a minute, “and I’m so glad—­so very glad—­that the chance was given to me to right the wrong that I was the cause of.”

[Image:  Illustration 6]

“‘And now the fun’s all over and the work begins,’ she said, looking
down.”

He looked at her and his eyes almost burned, they were so strong in their leaping desire to fling himself at her feet and adore her goodness and sweetness and worldliness and wisdom from that vantage-ground of worship.

She choked a little at the glance and put her hands together in her lap with a quick catching at self-control.

“And now the fun’s all over and the work begins,” she said, looking down.

“I know that,” he asseverated.

She lifted up her eyes and looked at him so very kindly.  And then—­after a little pause to gain command of word and thought she spoke again, slowly.

“Listen,” she said, this time very softly, but very seriously.  “I want to tell you one thing and I want to tell it to you now.  I had a good and sufficient reason for helping you out with Aunt Mary; but—­” She hesitated.

“But?” he asked.

“But I’ve no reason at all for helping your Aunt Mary out with you, unless you prove worthy of her, and—­”

“And?”

She looked at him, and shook her head slightly.

“I won’t say ‘and of me,’” she said finally.