Nina made this inquiry of her son so frequently that only an infinitesimal pause was ever consecrated by either of them to the reply which Morris invariably confined to a sudden sulky lowering of his whole expression. He had brought the production of this look to a fine art, and it gave an admirable representation of frank happy-hearted youth and confidence sharply transformed into sullen, hopeless misery by the recurrence of an unjust, and yet oft-repeated, attack.
Inwardly, he was always rather relieved when his parent proceeded to definite rhetoric. It justified his own sense of grievance far more effectually than the covert and undignified verbal sparring which marked their more surface intercourse.
When Nina pitched her voice some three semitones lower than its natural note and said,“The day will come, my poor Morris——” her son felt that she was safely embarked upon a course well known to them both, and merely retained his sombre expression by a mechanical effort of will.
The successive stages of Nina’s contempt, her amused toleration, and at the same time her almost supernatural supply of patience and love for the blind and erring Morris, were reached and left behind, the youth and ignorance and folly of Morris and the store of regrets and bitter memories awaiting him in that future when Nina’s understanding and forgiveness would no longer be available, were all touched upon with the sure hand of long practice, and the final peroration beginning, “Ah, if youth but knew!” was almost in sight when Nina suddenly, and, her son considered, most unjustly, interpolated into her discourse a reference which she seldom made us of, and which always disquieted Morris profoundly.
“And, mind you, Morris, you won’t be able to go on like this with impunity, heartless and undutiful, and ungrateful to your mother, trading on her never giving you away to other people. The day will come when people will know, and will talk about it. That sort of thing doesn’t remain hidden for ever. You know very well that I would rather die than betray you, but—later on—that sort of thing comes out, Morris.”
Morris’ thoughts, not for the first time, fled apprehensively to his mother’s diaries.
These volumes, slowly accumulating ever since he could remember, had always held for him a subtle menace.
He knew that Mrs. Severing flew to them for solace, and had seen her more than once, with tears still gleaming on her golden lashes, bent over her desk, after interviews with her son similar to the present one.
And although Morris did not take his parent’s fame as a composer at her own valuation, he had never been devoid of an uneasy conviction that she meant to present posterity with her own conception of the author of the “Kismet” series, and a lively apprehension had consequently circled for him round the thought of her diaries almost ever since he could remember.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said sullenly, and wishing that he did not.