DAY!" she answered vivaciously. "He was a diplomat, a courtier to
his finger-tips. He was born to the atmosphere of hothouse flowers,
and salons, and delightful little drawing-room plots and gossip. He
loved politics, and power, and women in full dress, and men with
orders. Of course I was very new to it all, but he liked to spoil
me, draw me out. If it hadn't been for his accident, I never would
have grown up at all, I dare say. As it was, I was more like his
mother. We went to Washington for the season, New York for the
opera, England for autumn visits, Paris for the spring: I loved to
make him happy, Barry, and he wasn't happy except when we were
going, going, going. He was exceptionally popular; he had
exceptional friends, and he couldn't go anywhere without me. My
babies were with his mother--"

She paused, turning a white rose between her fingers. "And
afterwards," she said presently, "there was Father. And Father never
would spend two nights in the same place if he could help it,"

"I wasn't drawn back here as you were," said Barry thoughtfully, "I
liked New York; I could have made good there if I'd had a chance. It
made me sick to give it up, then; but lately I've been feeling
differently. A newspaper's a pretty influential thing, wherever it
is. I've been thinking about that clubhouse plan of yours; I wish to
the Lord that we could do something for those poor kids over there.
You're right. Those girls have rotten homes. The whole family
gathers in the parlor right after dinner. Pa takes his shoes off,
and props his socks up before the stove; Ma begins to hear a kid his
spelling; and other kids start the graphophone, and Aggie is
expected to ask her young man to walk right in. So after that she
meets him in the street, and the girls begin to talk about Aggie."