He climbed the ladder to the studio where, through long years of discouragement, his father had refused to stoop below himself. Leaning from the window, he gazed into the garden. The dusty smell of the ivy came to him.
There in the darkness his mother found him. Coming in quietly, she crouched beside him, taking his hands.
“Mother, you’re very beautiful.”
Her heart quickened. “Something’s happened. Once you wouldn’t have said that.”
“I’ve been thinking about so many things,” he whispered, “about how it must have helped a man to have had some one like you always to himself.”
“You were thinking,” she brushed his cheek with hers, “you were thinking about yourself—about the long, long future.”
“Yes.” His voice scarcely reached her. “I was growing frightened because of Hal. I was feeling kind of lonely. Then I thought of you and Jimmie Boy. It would be fearful to grow up like Hal.”
“You won’t, Teddy.”
There was a long silence. They could hear each other’s thoughts ticking. At last he whispered, “Desire said she never had a father.”
“Poor little girl! You must have guessed?”