“But why didn’t you tell me?” said Mrs. Davenant, looking distressed and frightened.
Una felt guilty.
“I don’t know,” she said in reply. “I think it was because I knew you would feel angry.”
Mrs. Davenant stared at her. It was like the reply of a child in its simple, naked truth.
“Well, well,” she said, with a troubled voice, “of course you couldn’t help it, and I couldn’t help it. And”—here the door opened quietly, and Jack’s head appeared, and Mrs. Davenant started.
Seeing that they were alone, Jack came in with his usual coolness, though his heart beat; and he crossed the room, and took Mrs. Davenant’s hand and kissed her forehead.
And the poor woman melted in a moment, as she always did when Jack was actually present. As a matter of simple truth, she was really as fond of him as if he had been her own son, and but for Stephen, Jack would have seen her oftener.
He had lost his mother in early boyhood, and the kind-hearted, affectionate, timid Mrs. Davenant had often dried his boyish tears and held him in her arms. Even now, notwithstanding Jack’s wickedness, of which Stephen made the most, her heart went out toward him.
He had not been near her for some months, nearly a year, all through Stephen, and she had almost given him up; but Jack’s kiss revived all the old tenderness. And what woman could resist his handsome face and frank, manly way?
“Well, ma’am,” he said—and “ma’am” sounded in her ears and in Una’s almost like “mother”—“and how are you? And aren’t you glad to see me?”