“A servant brought mother her card and a note. I didn’t know she was in the house till mother sent for me and gave me the message to take down.”
“Will your mother see her?”
“No, indeed,” he replied, recovered somewhat; “mother won’t have anything to do with them.”
“Well, go on and deliver your message,” I said; “I’ll step into the little reception-room behind the drawing-room. See that you speak loud enough for me to hear every word.”
As I entered the reception-room, he entered the drawing-room. “Mother says,” he said—naturally, his voice was ridiculously loud and nervous—“that she has no interest in the information you sent her, and no acquaintance with the person to whom it relates.”
There was a silence so long that curiosity made me move within range of one of the long drawing-room mirrors. I saw her and Walter reflected, facing each other. She was so stationed that I had a plain view of her whole figure and of her face—the first time I had ever really seen her face. Her figure was drawn to its full height, and her bosom was rising and falling rapidly. Her head was thrown back, and upon poor Walter was beating the most contemptuous expression I ever saw coming from human eyes. No wonder even his back showed how wilted and weak he was.
As I watched, she suddenly turned her eyes; her glance met mine in the mirror. Before I could recover and completely drive the look of amusement from my face, she had waved Walter aside and was standing in front of me. “You heard what your son said!” she exclaimed; “what do you say?”
I liked her looks, and especially liked her voice. It was clear. It was magnetic. It was honest. When I wish to separate sheep from goats I listen to their voices, for voices do not often lie.
“I refuse to believe that he delivered my note to—to James’s mother.” There was a break in her voice as she spoke James’s name—it distinctly made my nerves tingle, unmoved though my mind was. “James is—is—” she went on, slowly, but not unsteadily—“the doctors say there’s no hope. And he—your son—sent me, and I am here when—when—but—what do you say?”
It is extraordinary what power there is in that woman’s personality. If Walter hadn’t been there I might have had to lash myself into a fury and insult her to save myself from being swept away. As it was, I looked at her steadily, then rang the bell. The servant came.