put on for my benefit. Still,
I could hear her singing to herself and she moved like a happy person.

In looking round the parlour I was greeted on every wall by pictures
of a charming youth I guessed was darling Clyde. A fine young face he
had, and looked as happy as Vida herself. There was pictures of him
with a tennis racket and on a sailboat and with a mandolin and standing
up with his college glee club and setting on a high-powered horse and
so forth, all showing he must be a great social favourite and one born
to have a good time. I wondered how he'd come to confer himself on
the cashier of a quick-lunch place. I thought it must be one of these
romances. Then--I'm always remembering the foolishest things--I recalled
a funny little absent look in Vida's eyes when she spoke of her darling
coming home from business. I thought now it must of been pride; that he
was performing some low job in a factory or store while she run the
boarding house, and she didn't want me to know it. I thought he must
be a pretty fine rich man's son to stand the gaff this way when cast
off by his father for mixing up with a daughter of the people.

It come dinnertime; about a dozen boarders straggling in, with Vida in
a pretty frock anxious because darling Clyde was ten minutes late and
of course something fatal must of happened to him in crossing a crowded
street. But nothing had. He showed up safe and sound and whistling in
another ten minutes, and became the life of the party. He looked near as
happy as Vida did when she embraced him out in the hall, a fine handsome
young fellow, the best-natured in the world, jollying the boarders and
jollying me and jollying Vida that he called Baby Girl, or Babe. I saw,
too, that I must of been mistaken about the job he was holding down. He
was dressed in a very expensive manner, with neat little gold trinkets
half concealed about him, the shirt and collar exactly right and the
silk socks carefully matching the lavender tie.

He kept the table lively all through dinner with jokes and quips from the
latest musical comedies and anecdotes of his dear old college days, and
how that very afternoon he had won a silver cup and the pool championship
of his college club--and against a lot of corking good players, too, he
didn't mind saying. Also I noticed we was eating a mighty good dinner; so
darned good you didn't see how Vida could set it up at the price boarders
usually pay.

After dinner Clyde sat down