But, on the threshold of the kitchen, he saw something which brought a new sensation. In free fights while in the navy he had thought he had seen red; but he had never seen red like this. He had never supposed it possible that this torrent of wrath, tenderness, and pity should rise within himself, a fountain spouting at the same time both sweet water and bitter.
His mother was seated at the table, crying. The ham bone was before her, the rags of meat on the plate, and the knife on top of them. But she, like Gladys a few minutes previously, had covered her face with her hands, while her shoulders rocked.
In all his twenty-one years Teddy had never seen his mother cry. He had cried; the girls had cried; his father had very nearly cried; but his mother never. The strong spirit had grieved in strong ways, but not in this way. Now it seemed as if all the griefs she had laid up since the days when she was Lizzie Scarborough had heaped themselves to the point at which these strange, harsh, unnatural tears were their only assuagement.
Teddy was down on his knees beside her, his arm flung round her neck.
"Ma! Good old ma! Dear old ma! Don't cry! For God's sake don't cry! Stop crying, ma!" he shouted, in an imploring passion as strange, harsh, and unnatural as her own. "Here's the money I had saved for my new clothes. Take it and go and pay something on the gas bill. There! There! Stop! For God's sake! For your little boy's sake! I love you, ma. Only stop! There! That's better! Calm down, ma! Everything will be all right, and I'll—I'll get the new clothes by and by."
But in his heart he was saying, "To hell with Collingham & Law's!" as he laid the bill before her.
[CHAPTER VIII]
Jennie cried herself to sleep that Wednesday night, and, in the morning, cried herself awake. She was in no doubt as to the motive of her tears; she was sorry for having put a gulf between her and the man she loved by marrying one she didn't care for.
Why she didn't care for him was beyond her power of analysis. He was good and kind and tender; he was rocklike and steady and strong. In a forceful way he was almost handsome, and some day he would be rich. But there was the fact that, her heart being given to the one man, her nerves shuddered at the other. The explanation she used to give, that the lividness of the scar on his forehead frightened her, was no longer tenable, since the mark tended to fade out. The other infirmity, his limp, was also less conspicuous, for, though he would never walk as if his foot had not been crushed, he walked as well as many other men. It wasn't these peculiarities; it wasn't any one thing in itself; it was simply that she didn't love him and never would.
Whereas, she did love another man. She loved his violet eyes, his brown mustache, his flashing teeth, his selfishness, his cruelty. She loved his system of starving her out, his habit of keeping her in anguish. Too much reasonableness was hard for her to assimilate, like too much water to a portulaca.