"To please Theodora," she said scornfully.
"To please Theodora and myself. I like the country; it is sunny and delightful, and the people are wonderfully gracious and kind."
"Of course, they have to be more than ordinary civil, or what decent people would live among the crowd that went there?"
"That element has disappeared. There are no finer men and women in the world than the Californians. I shall ask for citizenship among them."
Then the temper she had been trying to control broke loose, and carried all before it. "You base fellow!" she cried, "you traitor to all good! You are unworthy of the country, the home, and the business you desert. I am ashamed to have brought you into the world. To surrender everything for a creature like your runaway wife is monstrously wicked—is incredibly shameful!"
"If I could surrender more for Theodora, I would gladly do it, so that I might atone for what I, and you, made her suffer. And she has not taken me to California—you drove her there."
"I'm gey glad I did."
"And as she will not come back here, I must go to her there. Your own work, mother."
"Very good. I accept it. I'm proud o' it."
"My dear mother——"