clipped mustache. He looked a man of success and unashamed appetites.
"Got a hot date you didn't want me to know about?" he said. There was a twinkle of malice in his dark blue eyes as he went on. "What's her name, huh?"
Gaylord scanned his father's friendly face, awkwardly juggled the change in his pocket. "I don't have a date … I …" he said in a slow, strangled tone. "I could have gotten one … but … er … I wasn't going until all of a sudden …"
"Going where?"
"They're having a dance in the auditorium and I thought I'd go for awhile. That is if you and mother don't care."
Le Claire screwed up his eyes and peered at Gaylord as though he were in a very poor light. He flicked his ashes into a heavy glass ashtray. "Care?" he questioned in a pleasant tone. "Hell no … you go on and have some fun."
Gaylord's face brightened, and he regarded Le Claire warily from under his bushy eyebrows.
"Between you and me," said Le Claire in a fatherly way, "I'd rather go to a dance alone too. That way you can play the whole field. You don't have to dance with one gal all evening in case you take a lemon."
"I guess you're right," Gaylord grinned. He hadn't even told his father he never had a date but he had guessed it.
"Sure I'm right." Le Claire rose. "You run along and have a good time."
"Will you tell Mother?"
"Sure, I'll tell her."
Gaylord was not surprised, in fact it seemed to him the most natural thing in the world when his father put an arm around his shoulder and walked to the door with him.
"I'll have a good time," Gaylord said … "and … thanks, Dad." He had an impulse to kiss his father's cheek for the first time in years but …
"Good … don't stay out too late. Remember school tomorrow."
"I won't."
Le Claire watched Gaylord jump into the cream convertible he
