"I don't see that you need consider anyone but yourself. We've dragged you into this. You've a right to do exactly as you please."
"Oh, if I were to do that...."
"What I don't want you to do is to misjudge me. Not that it would matter whether you misjudged me or not, unless—later—we were compelled to see ourselves as—as son and mother."
"I shouldn't like to have either of us do that—under compulsion."
Restlessly, rapidly, she began to move about, touching now this object and now that. Her hands were as active as if they had an independent life. They were more expressive than her tone when they tossed themselves wildly apart, as she cried:
"What else could it be for me—but compulsion?" He was about to speak, but she stopped him. "Do me justice. Put yourself in my place. My boy would now be twenty-four. They bring me a man who looks like thirty. Yes, yes; I daresay you're not thirty, but you look like it. It's just as hard for me as if you were thirty. I'm only forty-four myself. They want me to think that this man—so big—so grave—so old—is my little boy. How can I? He may be. I don't deny that. But for me to think it ...!"
He watched her as she moved from table to table, from chair to chair, her eyes on him reproachfully, her hands like things in agony.
"It's as hard for me to think it as it is for you."
The words arrested her. Her frenzied motions ceased. Only her eyes kept themselves on him, with their sorrowful, fixed stare.
"What do you mean by that?"