ldn'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.

Ten minutes later there came the sound of blithe whistling from
Jock's room. Jock always whistled when he went to bed and when he
rose. Even these years of living in a New York apartment had
not broken him of the habit. It was a cheerful, disconnected
whistling, sometimes high and clear, sometimes under the breath,
sometimes interspersed with song, and sometimes ceasing altogether
at critical moments, say, during shaving, or while bringing the
four-in-hand up tight and snug under the collar. It was one of
those comfortable little noises that indicate a masculine
presence; one of those pleasant, reassuring, man-in-the-house
noises that every woman loves.

Emma McChesney, putting herself to bed in her room across the
hall, found herself listening, brush poised, lips parted, as
though to the exquisite strains of celestial music. There came the
thump of a shoe on the floor. An interval of quiet. Then another
thump. Without having been conscious of it, Emma McChesney had
grown to love the noises that accompanied Jock's retiring and
rising. His dressing was always signalized by bangings and
thumpings. His splashings in the tub were tremendous. His morning
plunge could be heard all over the six-room apartment. Mrs.
McChesney used to call gayly through the door:

"Mercy, Jock! You sound like a school of whales coming up for
air."

"You'll think I'm a school of sharks when it comes to breakfast,"
Jock would call back. "Tell Annie to make enough toast, Mum. She's
the tightest thing with the toast I ever did--"

The rest would be lost in a final surging splash.

The noises in the room across the hall had subsided now. She
listened more intently. No, a drawer banged. Another. Then:

"Hasn't my gray suit come back from the tailor's?"

"It was to be sponged, too, you know. He said he'd bring it
Wednesd