e, dutifully, though they told him
not to bother, and they evidently meant it. They seemed capable, not
only of going home quite unattended, but of delivering a pointed lecture
to any highwayman or brawler who might molest them.

The following Thursday Eva would say, "How did you like her, Jo?"

"Like who?" Jo would spar feebly.

"Miss Matthews."

"Who's she?"

"Now, don't be funny, Jo. You know very well I mean the girl who was
here for dinner. The one who talked so well on the emigration question.

"Oh, her! Why, I liked her all right. Seems to be a smart woman."

"Smart! She's a perfectly splendid girl."

"Sure," Jo would agree cheerfully.

"But didn't you like her?"

"I can't say I did, Eve. And I can't say I didn't. She made me think a
lot of a teacher I had in the fifth reader. Name of Himes. As I recall
her, she must have been a fine woman. But I never thought of her as a
woman at all. She was just Teacher."

"You make me tired," snapped Eva impatiently. "A man of your age. You
don't expect to marry a girl, do you? A child!"

"I don't expect to marry anybody," Jo had answered.

And that was the truth, lonely though he often was.

The following spring Eva moved to Winnetka. Any one who got the meaning
of the Loop knows the significance of a move to a north-shore suburb,
and a house. Eva's daughter, Ethel, was growing up, and her mother had
an eye on society.

That did away with Jo's Thursday dinner. Then Stell's husband bought a
car. They went out into the country every Sunday. Stell said it was
getting so that maids objected to Sunday dinners, anyway. Besides, they
were unhealthy, old-fashioned things. They always meant to ask Jo to
come along, but by the time their friends were placed, and the lunch,
and the boxes, and sweaters, and George's camera, and everything, there
seemed to be no room for a man of Jo's bulk. So that eliminated the
Sunday dinners.

"Just drop in any time during the week," Stell said, "for dinner. Except
Wednesday--that's our bridge night--and Saturday. And, of course,
Thursday. Cook is out that night. Don't wait for me to phone."

And so Jo drifted into that sad-eyed, dyspeptic family made up of those
you see dining in second-rate restaurants, their paper propped up
against the bowl of oyster crackers, munching solemnly and with
indifference to the stare of the passer-by surveying them through the
brazen plate-glass window.

And then came the War. The war that spelle