Noll made a step towards him—hesitated—his mouth hardened:
“I cannot stay in a house, sir, which my mother has struck off her visiting list,” he said sullenly.
The old lord laughed loudly and long:
“By God,” said he—“you are a man!”
He went to the youth and gripped him by the shoulders:
“No, Noll—it can’t be. Your mother would never stand the new aristocracy—it’s so damned like the old profligacy—without the breeding.... Good-bye, my boy; and damn all ink-stains, say I!”...
As Noll reached London he decided to go and see his mother, and make her acquainted with his doings and his intentions. He had an uneasy feeling that he had unjustly neglected her of late.
He was glad to find, when he arrived, that his father was away from home.
As his mother stood there in her attic, listening to him, Noll was filled with a glow of pride in her gentle womanly dignity and her resourceful and uncomplaining good breeding.
The place had an air that made the word “attic” classical....