"Matter of terms, my boy. You kissed her, you say? It amounts to much the same thing."
"It does nothing of the kind. Besides, what fault there was lies at my door; she is not to blame."
"I never insinuated that either of you were to blame. I only said that it amounted to the same thing."
A silence followed, broken at length by Griff.
"It's pretty hopeless, either way," he finished. "If I leave things as they are, she runs a constant danger of being murdered by that brute. If we cut the whole thing, and go away together, it will break mother's heart."
Roddick had been oddly moved during this recital. Twice he had been on the point of blurting out something that lay at the top of his mind; thrice his face had grown soft with pity. It would not have been Roddick if he had allowed these lapses to go without correction.
"Well, you've got to choose," he said bluntly. "We always have to choose when anything serious is at stake. Which is more to you, the lover or the mother?"
Griff frowned at him.
"Roddick," he said, with just the trace of a catch in his voice, "when I speak of my mother, I don't mean any conventional rot. All my life she has been a lover and a friend to me."