“How can you bear to make me so unhappy, Bertie!” she had asked him.
“It isn’t me that makes you unhappy, Mammy,” he had answered. “It’s Father. You wouldn’t worry about me, if he didn’t make you. You know I’m all right—a heart of gold under a rough exterior. A harmless buffoon. I’m just consciously being wild, as is proper for my years. It’s all Father’s fault.”
She acknowledged to herself, with some surprise, that he was right. Left to herself, she would not have worried over Bertie; there was a quality in even his most grave follies, a grace, an innate delicacy which in her eyes quite redeemed them. He didn’t love his vices, he played with them.
She rang the bell, and the door was opened instantly, not by the maid, but by Bertie himself.
“Hello, Mammy!” he cried. “I’ve been waiting for you! Your tea’s ready!”
She followed him into the front room, and found it charmingly prepared for her. He had lighted the gas logs, and had drawn up before the blaze a little gilt table never before used for such a purpose, on which he had arranged a silver tea-service always kept in state on the dining-room sideboard, and a bowl of red carnations.
“Why, Bertie!” she cried. “How dear of you!”
“Wasn’t it? Sit down, Mammy, and try a cake!”
“My dear boy! Did you buy the flowers and cakes for me yourself?”
“I bought the flowers. The cakes were a gage of love. Mammy, lookin’ about you, don’t you feel convinced that I’d be the best husband that ever was?”