Ansley smiled, paternally. "Suppose we leave it there. After all, the last word rests with him."
"I don't think so, sir. It rests with me."
This could be dismissed as of no importance. "Oh, with you, of course, in a certain sense. They can't force you. But if they're satisfied that you're—"
"And if I'm not satisfied?"
"Oh, but, my dear fellow, you wouldn't make yourself difficult on that score."
"It's not a question of being difficult; it's one of what I can do."
They got no farther than that. Tom's reluctance to deny the woman he had always regarded as his mother was not only hard for them to seize, it was hard for him to explain. He couldn't make them see that the creature who for them was only a common shoplifter was for him the source of tender and sacred memories. To accuse her of a greater crime than theft would be to desecrate the shrine which he himself had built of love and pity; but he was unable to put it into words, as they were unable to understand it. He himself worded it as plainly as he could when, rising, he said:
"So that I must renounce my mother or renounce Hildred."
Ansley also rose. "That's not quite the way to express it. If she was your mother, there can be no question of your renouncing her. But then, too, there can be no question of—of Hildred. I'm sure you must see."