'Mother.'
'Well?'
She turned her head slowly towards him, and for the first time that evening their eyes met,—dark serious eyes, almost the only trace of resemblance between mother and son, the only feature they had in common. 'Well?' she repeated after an instant's pause. She was still standing; now she crossed the room to fetch another candle, which she lighted and placed before him. 'There is no reason you should eat your supper in the dark. It is little enough pleasure that comes here in the daytime, goodness knows. But you never did care about being made comfortable.'
'Mother, I think—I have been thinking of asking Drea if he does not want another hand at his work. I can manage a boat if I can do nothing else. And it will be something to go on with for the present. That is, if you have no objection,' said Dino, still looking at her rather anxiously.
'And if I had, what difference would it make? Will you not go your own way as your father did before you? What good has ever come of my objecting?' She had taken up her knitting again, and was turning it over and over between her trembling fingers. 'It is the same story—it began in the same way. It began so with your father. I have seen it all before,' she said in a hopeless sort of voice, and with a half sob.
Dino looked up quickly at the sound, and seemed about to speak, but her face was turned away from him. He remained silent, pushing away the untouched food before him, and leaning both arms upon the table.
'Are you going to that—to that place again to-night? I will never mention its name—to that club of yours? But of course you are. It is the same story over again. I tell you, like father like son. And sometimes—sometimes I ask myself what is the use of it all? Though I should work my hands off,' she said passionately, 'though I work my hands off trying to keep the place comfortable for you; trying to be respectable and keep up appearances, what is the good? As your dear Drea says, can one man lift both ends of a beam at the same time? And I'm tired of struggling against what I cannot help. Have your own way. I've tried hard enough, God knows, but there are no sails will keep a stone from sinking.' She got up restlessly from her place and walked over to the fire and came back again. 'Italia! 'tis my belief the girl has bewitched you all, with her baby face and those great eyes of hers. I spend my life, I make a slave of myself, for you and the child, and for what good? Why, even the child, even Palmira, it's little enough she troubles her head about me if she can get Italia to do so much as look at her. Italia! I don't say she is not a good girl——'
'Mother!'
'I tell you—— Dino, I will not have you looking at me in that way. I will not have it. I am not saying anything against Italia, I tell you. I have not waited until now to have my own son teach me how to know a good girl when I see one, though, mind you, there's many a lass will sweep out the corners of the balcony while she's waiting to be married, and when she's got a husband—you'll not find her so much as wiping the dust off her own plate. Not that I am saying that Italia is of that sort. She is a good girl.'
'Yes,' said Dino lifting up his face. And then, as if there had indeed been some spell of comfort and of healing in the very sound of her name, he rose with a new look of light and gladness in his young eyes.