"The—the welcome—home."
Tad spluttered, indignantly. "What the devil do you want? Do you expect us to put up an arch?"
"No; I don't expect anything. I should only like you to understand that though it isn't easy for you, it's easier for you than for me."
Tad turned to his father. "Now you're getting it! I could have told you beforehand, if you'd consulted me."
"You see," Tom continued, paying no attention to the interruption, "you're all different from me. You're used to different things, to different standards and ways of thinking. If I were to come in among you the only phrase that would describe me is the homely one of the fish out of water. I should be gasping for breath. I couldn't live in your atmosphere."
Tad was again the only one to voice a comment. "Well, I'll be damned!"
Tom's legs which had quaked at first, began to be surer under him. "Please don't think I'm venturing to criticize anyone or anything. This is your life, and it suits you. It wouldn't suit me because it isn't mine. The past makes me as it makes you, and it's too late now to unmake us. It's possible that I may be Harry Whitelaw. When I hear the evidence that can be produced I can almost think I am. But if I am Harry Whitelaw by birth, I'm not Harry Whitelaw by life and experience. I can't go back and be made over. I'm myself as I stand." Still having in his hand the pictures of Lucy Speight, he held them out. "To all intents and purposes this is—my mother."
"And I kissed you!"
Tom smiled. "Yes, but you don't know how she kissed me. I do. She loved me. I loved her. I've tried—I've tried my very best—to turn my back on her—to call her a thief—and any other name that would blacken her—and—and I can't do it."
The sleeping lioness in the mother was roused suddenly. Leaving her place behind the tea-table, she advanced near enough to him to point to the two photographs.