Part 41

She made no answer in words, but seemed to grow taller in the chair, so that I could see her shoulders, and I knew from this that she was now holding herself conceitedly and trying to look modest. “Not a bit of it, ma'am,” said I sharply, “that was not the reason at all.”

I was pleased to see her whisk round, rather indignant at last.

“I never said it was,” she retorted with spirit, “I never thought for a moment that it was.” She added, a trifle too late in the story, “Besides, I don't know what you are talking of.”

I think I must have smiled here, for she turned from me quickly, and became quite little in the chair again.

“David,” said I mercilessly, “did you ever see your mother blush?”

“What is blush?”

“She goes a beautiful pink colour.”

David, who had by this time broken my connection with the head office, crossed to his mother expectantly.

“I don't, David,” she cried.

“I think,” said I, “she will do it now,” and with the instinct of a gentleman I looked away. Thus I cannot tell what happened, but presently David exclaimed admiringly, “Oh, mother, do it again!”

As she would not, he stood on the fender to see in the mantel-glass whether he could do it himself, and then Mary turned a most candid face on me, in which was maternity rather than reproach. Perhaps no look given by woman to man affects him quite so much. “You see,” she said radiantly and with a gesture that disclosed herself to me, “I can forgive even that. You long ago earned the right to hurt me if you want to.”

It weaned me of all further desire to rail at Mary, and I felt an uncommon drawing to her.

“And if I did think that for a little while--,” she went on, with an unsteady smile.

“Think what?” I asked, but without the necessary snap.

“What we were talking of,” she replied wincing, but forgiving me again. “If I once thought that, it was pretty to me while it lasted and it lasted but a little time. I have long been sure that your kindness to me was due to some other reason.”

“Ma'am,” said I very honestly, “I know not what was the reason. My concern for you was in the beginning a very fragile and even a selfish thing, yet not altogether selfish, for I think that what first stirred it was the joyous sway of the little nursery governess as she walked down Pall Mall to meet her lover. It seemed such a mighty fine thing to you to be loved that I thought you had better continue to be loved for a little longer. And perhaps having helped you once by dropping a letter I was charmed by the ease with which you could be helped, for you must know that I am one who has chosen the easy way for more than twenty years.”

She shook her head and smiled. “On my soul,” I assured her, “I can think of no other reason.”

“A kind heart,” said she.

“More likely a whim,” said I.

“Or another woman,” said she.

I was very much taken aback.

“More than twenty years ago,” she said with a soft huskiness in her voice, and a tremor and a sweetness, as if she did not know that in twenty years all love stories are grown mouldy.

On my honour as a soldier this explanation of my early solicitude for Mary was one that had never struck me, but the more I pondered it now--. I raised her hand and touched it with my lips, as we whimsical old fellows do when some gracious girl makes us to hear the key in the lock of long ago. “Why, ma'am,” I said, “it is a pretty notion, and there may be something in it. Let us leave it at that.”

But there was still that accursed dedication, lying, you remember, beneath the blotting-pad. I had no longer any desire to crush her with it. I wished that she had succeeded in writing the book on which her longings had been so set.

“If only you had been less ambitious,” I said, much troubled that she should be disappointed in her heart's desire.

“I wanted all the dear delicious things,” she admitted contritely.

“It was unreasonable,” I said eagerly, appealing to her intellect. “Especially this last thing.”

“Yes,” she agreed frankly, “I know.” And then to my amazement she added triumphantly, “But I got it.”