Claude's throat was dry and husky. "What do you mean by—from now on?"
"I mean from the minute when you've irrevocably chosen between this woman and us. You haven't irrevocably chosen as yet. You've still time—to reconsider."
"But if I don't reconsider, father?—if I can't?"
"The choice is between her and—us."
He returned to his paper; but again his wife's nascent will to live asserted itself, to no one's astonishment more than to her own. "It's not between her and me, Claude," she cried, casting as she did so a frightened glance at the back of her husband's head. "I'm your mother. I shall stand by you, whoever fails." Her words terrified her so utterly that before she dared to cross the floor to her son she looked again beseechingly at the iron-gray top of her husband's head as it appeared above the back of the arm-chair. Nevertheless, she stole swiftly to her boy and put her hands on his shoulders. "I'm your mother, dear," she sobbed, tremblingly; "and if she's a good girl, and loves you, I'll—I'll accept her."
Masterman turned his newspaper inside out, as though pretending not to hear.
Thor waited till Claude and his mother, clinging to each other, had crept out of the room, before saying, "I'm responsible for this, father."
There was no change in the father's attitude. "So I supposed."
"The girl is a good girl, and I couldn't let Claude break her heart."
"You found it easier to break mine."