Page:Glitter (1926).pdf/318

". . . And I kept thinking. 'This ought to hurt like hell. This ought to just about kill me.' But it didn't. It just left me absolutely—at peace. Glad for her, because she's got everything money buys to make her happy. And glad for myself."

The room was quite quiet for several minutes. Then Jock lounged to his feet and stood smiling down upon his mother. "And it woke me up," he said, "to a lot of things."

Mrs. Hamill smiled back, but did not speak.

He left her, and she heard him whistling down the hall—heard his voice and Bennett's, remotely, from the kitchen. When he reappeared he bore two long glasses. "Here," he said, giving her one. "Inhale that while I tell you more tidings. Maybe this isn't a red-letter day!" He assumed an oratorical stance and with his left hand beat upon his breast so violently that the ice in the glass he held in his right clicked and jumped. "I've been promoted!

"Oh, not far, not far," he hastened to add, laughing at his mother's face. "Don't get all stewed up. I'm not managing editor yet, or anything. But—well, let me begin over."

He perched on the arm of her chair. "When I got back to the office this p. m. I began thinking the situation over, and that bid of Johnny's to the houseparty he and Peg are throwing right now down near New London began to sound very cagey. Everybody's down there, you know. Johnny and Peg, of course, and Larry, and Joe and his wife, and Dinny Purviance—" He fairly rushed over the next words "—'n'Cec'ly and the whole crowd. I sort of thought I'd like to go after all, now that things are as they are. So I braved Mr. Havens in his den, and he not only gave me a week off, starting tomorrow, but he told