“John,” said Lucius desperately, “do you think you can find that umbrella?”
With almost startling alacrity John rose and vanished from the room, and Lucius would have followed, but the distressed lady detained him. She caught a sagging pocket of his coat, and he found it necessary to remain until she should release him.
“You sha’n’t!” she cried. “Not till you’ve taken back that accusation.”
“But what accusa——”
“Shame on you! Ah, I didn’t think you’d ever come here and do such a thing to me. And this morning I was looking forward to a happy day! It’s a good thing you’re a bachelor!”
With which final insult she hurled his pocket from her—at least that was the expression of her gesture—and sank into a chair, weeping heart-brokenly. “You don’t understand!” she sobbed. “How could any man understand—or any woman not a mother! You think these hard things of me, but—but John doesn’t always love Luddie. Don’t you get even a little glimpse of what that means to me? There are times when John doesn’t even like Luddie!”
“Take care,” said Lucius gently. “Take care that those times don’t come oftener.”
She gasped, and would have spoken, but for a moment she could not, and was able only to gaze at him fiercely through her tears. Yet there was a hint of fear behind the anger.
“You dare to say such a thing as that to a mother?” she said, when she could speak.
Lucius’s eyes twinkled genially; he touched her upon the shoulder, and she suffered him. “Mother,” he said lightly, “have pity on your child!” Somehow, he managed to put more solemnity into this parting prayer of his than if he had spoken it solemnly; and she was silent.