“We shall be glad to let you talk privately with the young couple,” the old minister answered with punctilious politeness. “Come, Mama, Cora!”
“Will you please leave the room also, Mr. Nash?” Mrs. Stone went on ruthlessly, without taking time to acknowledge the old man’s courtesy.
Sally’s arms clung more tightly to David. “He’s going to stay, Mrs. Stone,” she gasped, amazed at her own temerity. “If you don’t let me marry David now, I shall marry him when I am eighteen. I don’t want to be adopted. I only want David—”
“I think the boy had better stay,” Enid Barr’s lovely voice, strangely not at all arrogant now, called from the doorway.
When the minister and his wife and daughter-in-law had left the room, Enid Barr softly closed the door against which she had been leaning, as if she had little interest in the drama taking place, and walked slowly toward David and Sally, who were still in each other’s arms. Gone from her small, exquisite face was the look of aloof indifference, and in its place were embarrassment, wistful appeal, tenderness and to Sally’s bewilderment, the most profound humility.
“Oh, Sally, Sally!” The beautiful contralto voice was husky with tears. “Can’t you guess why I want you, why I’ve hunted you down like this? I’m your mother, Sally.”
“My mother?” Sally echoed blankly. Then incredulous joy floated her pale little face with a rosy glow. “My mother? David—Mrs. Stone—oh, I can’t think!”
David’s arms had dropped slowly from about her shoulders and she stood swaying slightly. “But—you can’t be my mother!” she gasped, shaking her head in childish negation. “You’re not old enough. I’m sixteen—”
“And I’m thirty-three,” Enid Barr said gently. “There’s no mistake, Sally, my darling. I’m really your mother, and I’d like, more than anything in the world, for you to let me kiss you now and to hear you call me ‘Mother’.” She had advanced the few steps that separated them and was holding out her delicate, useless-looking little hands with such humility and timidity as no one who knew Enid Barr would have believed her capable of.
Sally’s hands went out involuntarily, but before their fingers could intertwine, Enid flung her arms about the girl and held her smotheringly close for a moment. Then she raised her small, slight body on tiptoes and pressed her quivering lips softly against Sally’s cheek. At the caress, twelve years of loneliness and mother-need rushed across the girl’s mind like a frantically unwinding spool of film.