the
Bible, but Gurney kind o' got me in the way o' thinkin' that if
she'd let him come back and set around with her an evening or two
sometimes--not reg'lar, I don't mean--why--Well, I just thought I'd see
what YOU'D think of it. There ain't any way to talk about it to Bibbs
himself--I don't suppose he'd let you, anyhow--but I thought maybe you
could kind o' slip over there some day, and sort o' fix up to have a
little talk with her, and kind o' hint around till you see how the land
lays, and ask her--"

"ME!" Mrs. Sheridan looked both helpless and frightened. "No." She shook
her head decidedly. "It wouldn't do any good."

"You won't try it?"

"I won't risk her turnin' me out o' the house. Some way, that's what I
believe she did to Sibyl, from what Roscoe said once. No, I CAN'T--and,
what's more, it'd only make things worse. If people find out you're
runnin' after 'em they think you're cheap, and then they won't do as
much for you as if you let 'em alone. I don't believe it's any use, and
I couldn't do it if it was."

He sighed with resignation. "All right, mamma. That's all." Then, in a
livelier tone, he said: "Ole Gurney took the bandages off my hand this
morning. All healed up. Says I don't need 'em any more."

"Why, that's splendid, papa!" she cried, beaming. "I was afraid--Let's
see."

She came toward him, but he rose, still keeping his hand in his pocket.
"Wait a minute," he said, smiling. "Now it may give you just a teeny bit
of a shock, but the fact is--well, you remember that Sunday when Sibyl
came over here and made all that fuss about nothin'--it was the day
after I got tired o' that statue when Edith's telegram came--"

"Let me see your hand!" she cried.

"Now wait!" he said, laughing and pushing her away with his left hand.
"The truth is, mamma, that I kind o' slipped out on you that morning,
when you wasn't lookin', and went down to ole Gurney's office--he'd told
me to, you see--and, well, it doesn't AMOUNT to anything." And he held
out, for her inspection, the mutilated hand. "You see, these days when
it's all dictatin', anyhow, nobody'd mind just a couple o'--"

He had to jump for her--she went over backward. For the second time in
her life Mrs. Sheridan fainted.

CHAPTER XXXII

It was a full hour later when he left her lying upon a couch in her own
room, still lamenting intermittently, though he assured her with heat
that the "fuss" she was making irked him far more than his physical