He stood silent, glaring at her. “It’s my own life,” he said at last, sullenly.
“That’s a very old argument. But is nothing owing to the mother who gave you that life, took care of your babyhood and childhood, had you educated and taught everything you know, from whom, my poor boy, you even derive what talent you may possess? Why, everything you have in the world is owing to your mother and father.”
Morris, furiously conscious that his mother was taking her stand upon false ground yet found no answer to that which he had heard a hundred times before.
“Do you suppose,” cried Nina, pursuing her advantage, “that you have a single real friend in the world, besides your mother? I know you boast as though you had always been popular wherever you went—you know best how much truth there is in it—but the people who flatter you and say they like you, have all been bought with my money. I’ve sent you to expensive schools, and allowed you to stay with anybody who asked you, and God knows I’m glad you should have friends and enjoy your youth. You can never say that I’ve grudged you anything, Morris.”
“Oh, I know very well you’ve given me every sort of thing,” he muttered. “I’ve never been ungrateful.”
“As though I wanted gratitude!” she cried in a sort of holy scorn. “You know very well, Morris, that I love you better than anyone else in the world—you are all I have left—and for seventeen years you’ve been my only thought, day or night. It’s very, very little I ask of you in return—only a little affection and unselfishness. Youth is very hard and ignorant, and one doesn’t ask much in return for all one gives.”
She suddenly pitched her voice three semitones lower.
“But the day will come, my poor Morris, when you will look back with wonder and bitter, bitter regret, to think that you refused to do the very little asked of you. And it will be too late then.”
As a little boy she had always worked on his feelings, since he was impressionable and highly-strung, but custom had dulled his sensibilities. But still he could not do more than look at her with anger and distrust in his young tragic gaze.
Nina slowly allowed the tears to well into her enormous eyes. They were always obedient to her summons, as are the tears of most physically delicate women, and, moreover, she was really agitated at the thought that Morris would not accept her judgment as infallible.