He dropped one lean leg over the other and gazed gravely at the fire.

He was still trying to convince himself that he had no particular plan for the evening--that it was quite likely he might go to the opera or to the club--or, in fact, almost anywhere his fancy suggested.

In his effort to believe himself the scowl came back, denting his eyebrows. Presently he forced a yawn, unsuccessfully.

Yes, he thought he'd better go to the opera, after all. He ought to go.... It seemed to be rather expected of him.

Besides, he had nothing else to do--that is, nothing in particular--unless, of course----

But _that_ would scarcely do. He'd been _there_ so often recently....

No, _that_ wouldn't do.... Besides it was becoming almost a habit with him. He'd been drifting there so frequently of late!... In fact, he'd scarcely been anywhere at all, recently, except--except where he certainly was not going that evening. And that settled it!... So he might as well go to the opera.

His mother, in scarf and evening wrap, pa.s.sing the library door on her way down, paused in the hall and looked intently at her only son.

Recently she had been observing him rather closely and with a vague uneasiness born of that inexplicable sixth sense inherent in mothers.

Perhaps what her son had faced in France accounted for the change in him;--for it was being said that no man could come back from such scenes unchanged;--none could ever again be the same. And it was being said, too, that old beliefs and ideals had altered; that everything familiar was ending;--and that the former things had already pa.s.sed away under the glimmering dawn of a new heaven and a new earth.

Perhaps all this was so--though she doubted it. Perhaps this son she had borne in agony might become to her somebody less familiar than the baby she had nursed at her own breast.

But so far, to her, he continued to remain the same familiar baby she had always known--the same and utterly vital part of her soul and body. No sudden fulfilment of an apocalypse had yet wrought any occult metamorphosis in this boy of hers.

And if he now seemed changed it was from that simple and familiar cause instinctively understood by mothers,--trouble!--the most ancient plague of all and the only malady which none escapes.

She was a rather startlingly pretty woman, with the delicate features and colour and the snow-white hair of an 18th century belle. She stood, now, drawing on her gloves and watching her son out of dark-fringed deep blue eyes, until he glanced around uneasily. Then he rose at once, looking at her with fire-dazzled eyes.

"Don't rise, dear," she said; "the car is here and your father is fussing and fuming in the drawing-room, and I've got to run.... Have you any plans for the evening?"

"None, mother."

"You're dining at home?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you go to the opera to-night? It's the Sharrows' night."

He came toward her irresolutely. "Perhaps I shall," he said. And instantly she knew he did not intend to go.

"I had tea at the Sharrows'," she said, carelessly, still b.u.t.toning her gloves. "Elorn told me that she hadn't laid eyes on you for ages."

"It's happened so.... I've had a lot of things to do----"

"You and she still agree, don't you, Jim?"

"Why, yes--as usual. We always get on together."

Helen Shotwell's ermine wrap slipped; he caught it and fastened it for her, and she took hold of both his hands and drew his arms tightly around her pretty shoulders.

"What troubles you, darling?" she asked smilingly.

"Why, nothing, mother----"

"Tell me!"

"Really, there is nothing, dear----"

"Tell me when you are ready, then," she laughed and released him.

"But there isn't anything," he insisted.

"Yes, Jim, there is. Do you suppose I don't know you after all these years?"

She considered him with clear, amused eyes: "Don't forget," she added, "that I was only seventeen when you arrived, my son; and I have grown up with you ever since----"

"For heaven's sake, Helen!--" protested Sharrow Senior plaintively from the front hall below. "Can't you gossip with Jim some other time?"

"I'm on my way, James," she announced calmly. "Put your overcoat on."

And, to her son: "Go to the opera. Elorn will cheer you up. Isn't that a good idea?"

"That's--certainly--an idea.... I'll think it over.... And, mother, if I seem solemn at times, please try to remember how rotten every fellow feels about being out of the service----"

Her gay, derisive laughter checked him, warning him that he was not imposing on her credulity. She said smilingly:

"You have neglected Elorn Sharrow, and you know it, and it's on your conscience--whatever else may be on it, too. And that's partly why you feel blue. So keep out of mischief, darling, and stop neglecting Elorn--that is, if you ever really expect to marry her----"

"I've told you that I have never asked her; and I never intend to ask her until I am making a decent living," he said impatiently.

"Isn't there an understanding between you?"

"Why--I don't think so. There couldn't be. We've never spoken of that sort of thing in our lives!"

"I think she expects you to ask her some day. Everybody else does, anyway."

"Well, that is the one thing I _won't_ do," he said, "--go about with the seat out of my pants and ask an heiress to sew on the patch for me----"

"Darling! You _can_ be so common when you try!"

"Well, it amounts to that--doesn't it, mother? I don't care what busy gossips say or idle people expect me to do! There's no engagement, no understanding between Elorn and me. And I don't care a hang what anybody----"

His mother framed his slightly flushed face between her gloved hands and inspected him humorously.

"Very well, dear," she said; "but you need not be so emphatically excited about it----"

"I'm not excited--but it irritates me to be expected to do anything because it's expected of me--" He shrugged his shoulders:

"After all," he added, "if I ever should fall in love with anybody it's my own business. And whatever I choose to do about it will be my own affair. And I shall keep my own counsel in any event."