"Think of—your mother! What has she not done and suffered that you might stand before the world—a free man? And your profession; your future! They are all your mother holds to for her peace and joy. And I? Well, I do not claim anything for myself; but you know the game as well as I. If you toss to the winds all that has been gained for you, professionally and socially, you are done for! Your renunciation and restraint, what have they amounted to, unless you accept them as stepping-stones and go—on?"
And then Travers clenched his hands and had his say.
In that moment his own mother rose clear and radiant beside him and made her appeal. She pleaded for justice, but she showed mercy. He must not forget or forego anything that had been gained for him; but he was her child, the child of her love—unasking, unfettered love—and the passion that was throbbing in him was pure and instinctive; he must not deny it or the rest would be shucks! Non-essentials must not hamper him. Alone, unsought, a strange and compelling force had made him captive. All that others, and himself, had achieved for him must make holy this simple but all-powerful desire.
Then she faded, that poor, little, half-forgotten mother! But she left, like the fragrance of rare flowers that had been taken from the dim, moon-lighted room, a memory of happiness and sweetness and content.
CHAPTER XXI
By all the deductions of experience the three people in the little inn should have, in the light of the morning after, been reduced to common sense; but the day laughed common sense to scorn and fanned the fires of the previous evening to bright flame.
"I must write a letter," announced Margaret after breakfast, "a letter so momentous that it will take me—an hour and a half! But my plans and yours are all laid. Now, Priscilla, none of your cap and apron look. You'll do exactly what I tell you to do; and you, too, Doctor Travers."
"I haven't the slightest intention of disobeying. And as for my cap and apron, I've burned them!" Priscilla tossed her head.
Travers looked at her, and her loveliness seemed enhanced in her trim white linen gown with its broad collar of Irish lace. How magnificent her throat was! What a perfect woman she was! And what hair!