More money than she knows
what to do with, and then not satisfied!"
She was still too tremulous for banter. "'Not satisfied'? Why, Leon, I
never stop praying my thanks for you!"
"All right, then," he cried, laying his icy fingers on her cheek;
"to-morrow we'll call a _mignon_--a regular old-fashioned Allen Street
prayer-party."
"Leon, you mustn't make fun."
"Make fun of the sweetest girl in this room!"
"'Girl'! Ah, if I could only hold you by me this way, Leon. Always a
boy--with me--your poor old mother--your only girl. That's a fear I
suffer with, Leon--to lose you to a--girl. That's how selfish the mother
of such a wonder-child like mine can get to be."
"All right! Trying to get me married off again. Nice! Fine!"
"Is it any wonder I suffer, son? Twenty-one years to have kept you by me
a child. A boy that never in his life was out after midnight except to
catch trains. A boy that never has so much as looked at a girl and could
have looked at princesses. To have kept you all these years--mine--is it
any wonder, son, I never stop praying my thanks for you? You don't
believe Hancock, son, the way he keeps always teasing you that you
should have a--what he calls--affair--a love-affair? Such talk is not
nice, Leon--an affair!"
"Love-affair poppycock!" said Leon Kantor, lifting his mother's face and
kissing her on eyes about ready to tear.
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