parted slightly. She sat very quietly, her eyes never leaving the
face that frowned so intently over the littered table. The room
had been very quiet before--Jock busy with his work, his mother
interested in her magazine. But this silence was different. There
was something electric in it. It was a silence that beats on the
brain like a noise. Jock McChesney, bent over his work, heard it,
felt it, and, oppressed by it, looked up suddenly. He met those
two eyes opposite.

"Spooks? Or is it my godlike beauty which holds you thus? Or is my
face dirty?"

Emma McChesney did not smile. She laid her magazine on the table,
face down, and leaned forward, her staring eyes still fixed on her
son's face.

"Look here, young 'un. Are you working too hard?"

"Me? Now? This stuff you mean--?"

"No; I mean in the last year. Are they piling it up on you?"

Jock laughed a laugh that was nothing less than a failure, so
little of real mirth did it contain.

"Piling it up! Lord, no! I wish they would. That's the trouble.
They don't give me a chance."

"A chance! Why, that's not true, son. You've said yourself that
there are men who have been in the office three times as long as