"But she considers I've already paid her. She feels that I have always given her bounteous return for all her aid."
"I don't figure it that way," he said. "She's just amusing herself—"
She interrupted. "Listen to what she says." She read: "'I want to tell you how much I like your son. He is so vivid and so powerful. I'm sorry he is to miss his degree. Can't you persuade him to go back? I'll be glad to advance what is necessary—'"
"There it is, you see! There's the rich lady helping a poor relation."
"Wait, son!" she pleaded, and read on. "'I feel that I owe you ten times what you've permitted me to do for you.'"
"That's all very nice of her, mother, but I won't have any more of it." He pounded out the sentence with his fist.
She looked up at him with mingled fear and pride. "You are exactly like your father as you say that," she declared. "Oh, Victor, my son! If you leave me in anger I shall be desolate indeed. I can't live without you. Please believe in me—and love me—for you're all I have on this earth."
His anger died away. He saw her again as she really was, a pale, devoted little saint, with troubled brow and quivering lips, one who had shed her very life-blood for him—to doubt her became a monstrous cruelty.
He put his arms about her and hugged her close. "I didn't mean to hurt you, mother—but your world is so strange to me. I'll stay, I'll do the best I can here; only don't work this slate trick any more. Don't sit for any one but me. Will you promise that?"
"May I not sit for Louise?"