Wayne might choose to betray his mother in the full irresponsibility of her attitude to so sympathetic a listener as Mr. Lanley, but he had no intention of giving Mrs. Farron such a weapon. At the same time he did not intend to be untruthful. His answer was this:
“My mother,” he said, “is not like most women of her age. She believes in love.”
“In all love, quite indiscriminately?”
He hesitated an instant.
“I put it wrong,” he answered. “I meant that she believes in the importance of real love.”
“And has she a spell by which she tells real love?”
“She believes mine to be real.”
“Oh, yours! Very likely. Perhaps it’s maternal vanity on my part, Mr. Wayne, but I must own I can imagine a man’s contriving to love my daughter, so gentle, so intelligent, and so extraordinarily lovely to look at. I was not thinking of your feelings, but of hers.”
“You can see no reason why she should love me?”
Adelaide moved her shoulders about.