"And you——" 

 "I could only do what was to be done. Then I went back on the road. I closed up the house, and now I've leased it. Of course it's big enough for a regiment. But we stayed on because mother was used to it. I sold some of the furniture, but stored the things she had loved. She left some to you." 

 "To me!" 

 "You know she used to enjoy your visits so much, partly because of the way in which you always talked of Dad. She left you some jewelry that she was fond of, and that colossal old mahogany buffet that you used to rave over whenever you came up. Heaven knows what you'll do with it! It's a white elephant. If you add another story to it, you could rent it out as an apartment." 

 "Indeed I shall take it, and cherish it, and polish it up myself every week—the beauty!" 

 She came back to her chair. They sat a moment in silence. Then Emma McChesney spoke musingly. 

 "So that was it." Buck looked up.  "I sensed something—different. I didn't know. I couldn't explain it." 

 Buck passed a quick hand over his eyes, shook himself, sat up, erect and brisk again, and plunged, with a directness that was as startling as it was new in him, into the details of Middle Western business. 

 "Good!" exclaimed Emma McChesney. 

 "It's all very well to know that Featherlooms are safe in South America. But the important thing is to know how they're going in the corn country." 

 Buck stood up. 

 "Suppose we transfer this talk to my office. All the papers are there, all the correspondence—all the orders, everything. You can get the whole situation in half an hour. What's the use of talking when figures will tell you." 

 He walked swiftly over to the door and stood there waiting. Emma McChesney rose. The puzzled look was there again. 

 "No, that wasn't it, after all," she said. 

 "Eh?" said Buck.  "Wasn't what?" 

 "Nothing," replied Emma McChesney. 

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