She waited for him to say something. She would have preferred the most brutal anger to this silence. It struck her down. He knelt before her rigid, breathing heavily, his face hard and set.
She spoke again, slowly. “If ever Vashti were to accept you, it would be the worst day’s work. The gods you worship are different. Hers are—hers are worthless.”
He sprang to his feet, pushing aside his mother’s hand. His voice was low and stabbing. “Worthless! I won’t hear you say that. You don’t know—don’t understand. I ought to have gone on keeping this to myself—ought not to have spoken to you. No, don’t touch me. She’s good, I tell you. It’s my fault if I’m such a fool that I can’t make her care.”
He spoke like a man in doubt, anxious to convince himself.
“It’s not your fault, Hal. The finest years of life! Could any man give more? You’re belittling yourself that you may defend her. You’re the little baby I carried in my bosom. I watched you grow up. I know you—all your strength and weakness. You’re the kind of man for whom love is as necessary as bread. Where there’s no kindness, you flicker out You lose your confidence with her and her friends; their flippancy stifles you. I don’t even doubt that you appear a fool. She’s a beautiful, heartless vampire; if she married you, she’d absorb your personality and leave you shrunken—a nonentity. She’s no standards, no religion, no sense of fairness; she wants luxury and a career and independence—and she wants you as well. Doesn’t want you as a comrade, but as an et cetera. She’s willing to accept all love’s privileges, none of its duties. She has plenty of self-pity, but no tenderness. Oh, my poor, poor Hal, what is it that you love in her? Is it her unresponsiveness?”
She seized both his hands, dragging herself up so that she leaned against his breast. “Hal, I’m afraid for you.” She kissed his mouth. “She’ll make you bad. She will. Oh, I know it. She’ll break your heart and appear all the time to be good herself. Can’t you see what your life would be with her?”
“I can see what it would be without her,” he said dully.
His mother’s voice fell flat “You can’t see that. God hides the future. There are good girls in the world. Life for you with her would be bitterness, while she went on smiling. She’s a woman who’ll always have a man in love with her—always a different man. She’ll never mean any harm, but every affection she breathes on will lose its freshness. She’s given you your chance to free yourself.”
She tried to draw him down to her. “Take it,” she urged.
He stooped, smoothed back the gray hair and kissed her wrinkled forehead.