“Smoke, won’t you?” she said presently. “It seems more natural.”
“All right—if you like.”
John lit a cigarette and blew two or three puffs into the air, high above his head, very thoughtfully.
“I’m waiting for your answer, Jack,” said Mrs. Ralston, at last.
“I don’t see what I’m to say,” replied John. “Why do you talk about it?”
“For this reason—or for these reasons,” said Mrs. Ralston, promptly, as though she had prepared a speech beforehand, which was, in a measure, the truth. “I’ve done you a mortal injury, Jack. I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s not. I’ll tell you why. If any one else, man or woman, had deliberately doubted your statement on your word of honour, you would never have spoken to him or her again. Of course, in our country, duelling isn’t fashionable—but if it had been a man—I don’t know, but I think you would have done something to him with your hands. Yes, you can’t deny it. Well, the case isn’t any better because satisfaction is impossible, is it? I’m trying to look at it logically, because I know what you must feel. Don’t you see, dear?”
“Yes. But—”
“No! Let me say all I’ve got to say first, and then you can answer me. I’ve been thinking about it all night, and I know just what I ought to do. I know very well, too, that most women would just make you forgive as much as you could and then pretend to you and to themselves that nothing had ever happened. But we’re not like that, you and I. We’re like two men, and since we’ve begun in that way, it’s not possible to turn round and be different now, in the face of a difficulty. There are people who would think me foolish, and call me quixotic, and say, ‘But it’s your own son—what a fuss you’re making about nothing.’ Wouldn’t they? I know they would. It seems to me that, if anything, it’s much worse to insult one’s own son, as I did you, than somebody else’s son, to whom one owes nothing. I’m not going to put on sackcloth and sit in the ashes and cry. That wouldn’t help me a bit, nor you either. Besides, other people, as a rule, couldn’t understand the thing. You never told me a lie in your life. Last Monday when you came home after that accident, and weren’t quite yourself, you told me the exact truth about everything that had happened. You never even tried to deceive me. Of course you have your life, and I have mine. I have always respected your secrets, haven’t I, Jack?”
“Indeed you have, mother.”