As there was obviously nothing to be gained by complying with Maggie’s request, David passed on to the parlor and the library, and not finding his mother in either place, went upstairs three steps at a time. Then he saw her sitting in her room, looking disconsolately out of the window. So sad was the expression on her face that David forgot what had been in his mind and exclaimed:
“What’s the matter, mother?”
Mrs. Ives rose and came toward him, with her arms outstretched.
“Oh, David dear, I can’t bear to have you go, I can’t bear to have you go!” With her arms round his neck she was sobbing on his shoulder.
“Go where?” David was bewildered and distressed. “What are you talking about, mother?”
She did not immediately answer, but went on weeping quietly. Then she said: “I will let your father tell you about it. It is his decision.”
“Then it can’t be anything so very terrible, mother,” David said, and he stroked and patted her while she clung to him.
“Not for you, perhaps, David, but it seems very hard to me. It may all be for the best, but I don’t know—I don’t know—”
David could not help reflecting that his father was always the optimist of the family and his mother usually the pessimist, and that therefore it would be desirable to await his father’s unfolding of the mystery. So he set about getting his mother into better spirits, which he did by tweaking her ears, kissing her, and telling her that he did not know where he was going or for how long, but that, wherever it was, they could not keep him from coming back to home and mother. She was a pretty little woman who looked scarcely old enough to have such a tall and stalwart son, and as he held her in his arms she seemed to be a kind of child mother—an anxious, diffident, confiding, appealing little person, with sensitive lips and timorous, soft brown eyes. David looked like her and yet not like her; his eyes were brown and shone affectionately, but there was fearlessness rather than timorousness in their glance; his lips were sensitive, but their curve showed a resolute rather than a vacillating character; he had his mother’s wavy brown hair. Soothing his mother, he smoothed her hair, he took her handkerchief and dried her eyes with it. “And now does this come next?” he asked, reaching for a powder-puff. So he got her to laugh, and her face had brightened when he led her downstairs.