And she finished her sock.
CHAPTER XXXVI
And so, before he had more than arrived, as it seemed, Justin’s last day came.
He was to catch the four-twenty. Mrs. Cloud, refusing to admit fatigue after her successful evening on the sofa, was planning to be up again—down, at least, for lunch—ready to see the poor boy off. But Justin decreed otherwise. Justin, painfully made aware on this last visit how weak the flesh had grown of that utterly willing spirit, was firm with his mother. Get up—to see him off? He would like to see her try! There was Robert to see him off and old Mary, wasn’t there? And Laura? Pack? Now did his mother think he should let her pack for him? There were boots, for instance, any one of which weighed more than his mother. Perhaps his mother would like to clean them for him first? No doubt!
He outlined his ideas.
They would spend a quiet morning together, and after lunch she was to be good and settle down to her nap. Of course he would run up before he left and say good-bye again—what did she think? But then she must promise him to go to sleep, really to go to sleep—no slippings out of bed at the sound of carriage wheels—no surreptitious waving from behind window curtains. What? Did she think he didn’t know her little ways?
He sat with her, as he had promised, till she fell into a light drowse, and then slipped away cautiously to his own room.
Laura, sitting in the parlour below, her eyes on a book, her ears a-prick at every sound, gave a sigh of relief as she heard his tread and the thud of his baggage on the floor. He had gone to his packing ... he would come soon now ... a matter of moments ... for he always packed as if he were cocking hay.... Ah—she thought so ... his door was opening ... he was coming downstairs.... She could afford at last to ignore the clock—that stolid thief who had impoverished her, filching one by one twenty minutes of the hoarded sixty that were hers.
He paused in the hall long enough to give her a pang. He was not going out?—to the stables? Yet she was able to look up indifferently when he opened—at last—the parlour door, and came in.