"Does she smile in amusement when she sees you?"
"No. She is too big-hearted for that. She is gentle and kind and friendly, because she is a little sorry for me and because she thinks mistakenly that she has reason to be grateful. As a friend, a helper, I am tolerable. As a lover I should only be absurd. See, mother, for yourself—this once!" He lifted her sensitive hands and guided them over his face. "My nose—my ears—my little pig's eyes—this grinning mouth—these silly whiskers that hide a little of my absurdity—"
She drew her hands quickly away.
"You are a gentleman, a fine, great-hearted gentleman—"
"With a face like a comic valentine. Even my mother can't say no to that. What woman wants a comic valentine for her lover? Don't you understand now? I can have her friendship now and be with her a little. And I can do little things to help her. I can't risk losing that to seek something she never could give."
"But she could have given it once. I know it. I knew it then, but I wouldn't tell you because I wanted to keep you for myself. He—your friend David—had not come then. You must take the risk for her sake. And before it is too late."
"But I can't inflict myself on her. It would be no kindness to her or to me." He left her and began to pace back and forth agitatedly, in the pompous, hopping little strut. "You are wrong—you must be wrong. It is impossible. It would be terrible, tragic even though they are both good. And it would be my fault. I brought them together, thinking she would help make things cheerful for him. . . . Mother, I wish you hadn't put this in my mind! I can't believe it. I won't believe it. He is honorable—"
The blind woman smiled sadly. "It is a thing with which honor or duty or law has nothing to do. And I fear—I fear it is already too late—because I kept silent when I should have opened your eyes."
But Jonathan was not listening. He was seeing the faces of his friends as they had been that evening. The scales were falling from his eyes, an evil black fear entering into his heart.
"Oh, Jonathan, my son—my dear son—"