This announcement was altogether too much for the landlady, who without another word grabbed Eric by the hand and led the way upstairs to the lodgers' sitting-room.
"Here's Mr. Alison's mother to see you, Mrs. Alison," she exclaimed in the doorway, after which thunderclap she returned to her own intimate glooms at the back of the house, admonishing Eric to ush if he didn't want to get such a slapping as would properly ush him for a week.
As Mary entered, the woman who had ruined her son's life rose from an arm-chair by the fire and putting a finger to her lips pointed to a cot.
"Molly's asleep," she exclaimed.
"My granddaughter," said Mary.
"My little gurl," replied the other with a burr that in these sharp-set London lodgings sounded strange. There was nothing about her except the accent to proclaim that she was rural. Mary remembered that Geoffrey had said she was three years older than himself. That would make her about thirty-two. She looked nearer forty with her thin-lipped anxious mouth, her fretful eyes, and needle-like fingers. It was hard to perceive now what beauty had charmed Geoffrey into marrying her. However, she did not appear blatant, which was something to be thankful for.
The two women had been watching each other in silence, when the child in the cot gave a low restless cry. At once they both made an instinctive movement to see what was the matter; but the mother was the quicker to bend over and murmur a few soothing words.
"Her teeth are fidgeting her," she explained. "She's been late in cutting them." In that instant she seemed to think that by saying so much she was offering her visitor more than she had intended to offer, and she drew close her eyebrows in a scowl.
"Not that my little gurl's teeth can interest you," she added scornfully.
"On the contrary," said Mary. "They interest me enormously. I did not know until yesterday that I was a grandmother. As soon as I knew, I came to see my granddaughter."