“No, sir! It won’t take long, but it’s got to be said now.”
He moved nearer to his mother, and I saw his lip twitch under his beard. After all, he was younger and less sure of himself than I had fancied.
“See here, mother,” he went on, “there’s something here that’s got to be cleared up, and as you say this gentleman is an old friend of yours it had better be cleared up in his presence. Maybe he can help explain it—and if he can’t, it’s got to be explained to him.”
Mrs. Amyot’s lips moved, but she made no sound. She glanced at me helplessly and sat down. My early inclination to thrash Lancelot was beginning to reassert itself. I took up my hat and moved toward the door.
“Mrs. Amyot is under no obligation to explain anything whatever to me,” I said curtly.
“Well! She’s under an obligation to me, then—to explain something in your presence.” He turned to her again. “Do you know what the people in this hotel are saying? Do you know what he thinks—what they all think? That you’re doing this lecturing to support me—to pay for my education! They say you go round telling them so. That’s what they buy the tickets for—they do it out of charity. Ask him if it isn’t what they say—ask him if they weren’t joking about it on the piazza before dinner. The others think I’m a little boy, but he’s known you for years, and he must have known how old I was. He must have known it wasn’t to pay for my education!”
He stood before her with his hands clenched, the veins beating in his temples. She had grown very pale, and her cheeks looked hollow. When she spoke her voice had an odd click in it.
“If—if these ladies and gentlemen have been coming to my lectures out of charity, I see nothing to be ashamed of in that—” she faltered.
“If they’ve been coming out of charity to me,” he retorted, “don’t you see you’ve been making me a party to a fraud? Isn’t there any shame in that?” His forehead reddened. “Mother! Can’t you see the shame of letting people think I was a d—beat, who sponged on you for my keep? Let alone making us both the laughing-stock of every place you go to!”
“I never did that, Lancelot!”