In his bedroom, Kimberly indicated a portrait above the fireplace. "This is my mother," he said to Alice. "Sit down for just a moment--I want you to like her."
"I like her very much, already," returned Alice. "But I should like to sit a moment to enjoy the portrait. I wish I could have known your mother."
"This room I fancy best of them all," Dolly was saying to MacBirney as they walked on. "All of this wall panelling and ceiling was made from one mahogany log brought up from Santo Domingo many years ago with a cargo of sugar."
Kimberly, sitting with Alice before his mother's picture, showed a self-consciousness he did not often betray, a solicitude, seemingly, that Alice should agree with his own estimate of his mother. "She was the most tender, kindly woman in the world," he said after a moment.
"Such a mother ought to be an inspiration to you for everything high and good, Mr. Kimberly."
"Yet I have never reached anything high and good."
"Sometime you will."
He looked at her curiously. "Do you really think that?"
"Yes, I do. And thank you for letting me see your mother."
"If you only could have met her!" There was an intensity of regret in his words. "It was a tragedy for such a woman to die young. I have long wanted you to see her portrait; you constantly make me think of her, Alice."