“You—you mean—you want to move?” She closed her eyes for a moment, “into a place of your own? You want to live—by yourselves? I—I can’t blame you for that—only—only—it is going to be very lonely here—without you.”
“I—I’ll see you every day, mother—and so will Katie.” He was eager as the words tumbled over each other in his hurry to have done with the disagreeable task his promised wife had set him. “We—we don’t want to move! Katie likes this place very much—and it is just the right size—for us. We—we thought—if we could find you—a couple of rooms—in the neighborhood—you know—near to us—it would be fine—and it would be much easier—for you to move than it would be—for us—to—to—find a place.”
He was scarlet when he finished, and he could not lift his eyes from the floor. The mother sat as if carved in stone. But the only emotion she betrayed was a slight quivering of the lips, and a sudden twitching of her eyelids.
“I—I’ll always take care of you, dear,” Howard hastened to assure her. “Every week you shall have a certain amount of my pay.”
“You—you couldn’t do it, dear.” Marjorie found her voice at last, although it was faint and trembled pitifully. “You couldn’t afford to keep up two homes.”
“Oh, yes, I can!” he eagerly plead. “Kate says she doesn’t mind scrimping at all—she doesn’t care how hard we have to struggle. Only she’s taken it into her head that she doesn’t want to live with—her—mother-in-law.” His voice was a husky whisper as the word he knew would flay his mother, came.
A sob that she could not choke broke on the stillness. In a moment Howard was on his knees beside her, his arms holding her close.
“Please, mother!” he begged. “Don’t feel that way! I love you just the same—but I’m a man now, and I’ve met the woman I want to marry. This comes into everyone’s life.”
Her arm closed about his neck and she held him close.
“Oh, my dear—my dear!” and now the sobs came unchecked. “You’re so precious to me—all that is left to me in the world! Husband! Daughter! All gone! Only you, dear,—only you!”