To be sure, it did bother me a little that Paul laughed so much, and so loudly, and that he couldn't seem to find anything to talk about only himself, and what he was doing, and what he was going to do.

Some way, he had never seemed like that at school.

And I was afraid Mother wouldn't like that.
All the evening I was watching and listening with her eyes and her ears everything he did, everything he said.

I so wanted Mother to like him! I so wanted Mother to see how really fine and splendid and noble he was.

But that evening--Why _couldn't_ he stop talking about the prizes he'd won, and the big racing car he'd just ordered for next summer?
There was nothing fine and splendid and noble about that.