“Your aunt hasn’t mentioned her plans for the future,” she replied.
He walked up and down in silence for a time, and to his mother there was something ominous in his steady footfall; it was, she thought, as if he were going away from her, miles and miles away. Suddenly he spoke again, from the other end of the veranda:
“Isn’t it hard enough for us to get on as it is?” he asked. “Without an extra—”
“George!” she cried, too hurt to stifle the cry. “Your own aunt!”
“Oh, let’s look at the thing from a practical point of view!” he suggested, impatiently. “You know what my salary is, mother, and you know how far it goes, or doesn’t go.”
“Please!” said Mrs. Russell, curtly. “Surely we needn’t discuss this now—before your aunt has been in the house an hour.”
“Just as you please!” said he. “But—” Again he walked down to the other end of the veranda. “All I mean is”—he went on, in a strained unsteady voice—“that I can’t do any more. I’ve—I’ve done my best, and I can’t do any more.”
Mrs. Russell sat like a statue in the gathering darkness. She had come face to face with sorrow and anxiety more than once in her life; she had had her full share of all that; but never, never before had anything wounded her like this. So she was a burden to her son.
All the little money left her by her husband she had used for the boy’s education and welfare, with all her love, her time, all her life thrown, unconsidered, into the bargain. And now she was a burden to him.
“I’ve lived too long,” she said as if to herself.