"She is older than my mother was when I was born."
"You don't think that Ethan—"
He was suddenly alert, anxious.
"No, no; I don't think it's his fault. He, too, looks upon her as a child. But it would be better if he went away."
"Ah! Ah, indeed; I wish I'd realized. We'll get him away as soon as possible."
His air of sudden energy seemed perhaps over-anxious.
"Don't do anything to excite suspicion. He is quite ready to go away with you at the end of the week."
"Where is he now?" demanded her son.
"In the parlor with Val."
They came down-stairs together, Mrs. Gano going back to Emmie. Her son laid his hand on the parlor door with something both anxious and inflexible in his manner. It might appear that the little scene on the other side was easily interrupted by a less extravagant expenditure of energy. So little may we know the people we spend our lives with, that the not unobservant old woman at the opposite door thought there was no more in her son's mind than in her own—a wish to save Val the pain of an unrequited devotion.