Mrs. Amherst lifted her bright black eyes to his. "Well, then—if they all think she needs it——"
"Good heavens, if travel were what she needed!—Why, we've never stopped travelling since we married. We've been everywhere on the globe except at Hanaford—this is her second visit here in three years!" He rose and took a rapid turn across the deserted verandah. "It's not because her health requires it—it's to get me away from Westmore, to prevent things being done there that ought to be done!" he broke out vehemently, halting again before his mother.
The aged pink faded from Mrs. Amherst's face, but her eyes retained their lively glitter. "To prevent things being done? What a strange thing to say!"
"I shouldn't have said it if I hadn't seen you falling under Mrs. Ansell's spell."
His mother had a gesture which showed from whom he had inherited his impulsive movements. "Really, my son—!" She folded her hands, and added after a pause of self-recovery: "If you mean that I have ever attempted to interfere——"
"No, no: but when they pervert things so damnably——"
"John!"
He dropped into his chair again, and pushed the hair from his forehead with a groan.
"Well, then—put it that they have as much right to their view as I have: I only want you to see what it is. Whenever I try to do anything at Westmore—to give a real start to the work that Bessy and I planned together—some pretext is found to stop it: to pack us off to the ends of the earth, to cry out against reducing her income, to encourage her in some new extravagance to which the work at the mills must be sacrificed!"
Mrs. Amherst, growing pale under this outbreak, assured herself by a nervous backward glance that their privacy was still uninvaded; then her eyes returned to her son's face.