He drew a deep breath.
"What's father ever done," he said, "to make you hate him?"
She should have realised then, from the sound in his voice, that she was, in her preoccupation with her own affairs, forgetting one of the principal elements in the whole case, his love for his father.
"It isn't what he's done," she answered. "It's what he hasn't done. Whom has he ever considered but himself? Isn't his conceit so big that he can't see any one but himself. Why should we go on pretending that he's so great and wonderful? Do you suppose that any one can live for twenty years and more with your father and not see how small and selfish and mean he is? How he----"
"You're not to say that," Falk interrupted her angrily. "Father may have his faults--so has every one--but we've got worse ones. He isn't mean and he isn't small. He may seem conceited, but that's only because he cares so for the Cathedral and knows what he's done for it. He's the finest man I know anywhere. He doesn't see things as I do--I don't suppose that father and son ever do see alike--but that needn't prevent me from admiring him. Why, mother, what's come over you? You can't be well. Leave father! Why, it would be terrible! Think of the talk there'd be! Why, it would ruin father here. He'd never get over it."
She saw then the mistake that she had made. She looked across at him beseechingly.
"You're right, Falk. I didn't mean that, I don't mean that. But I'm so unhappy that I don't know what I'm saying. All I want is to be with you. It wouldn't hurt father if I went up to London with you for a little. What I really want is a holiday. I could come back after a month or two refreshed. I'm tired."
Suddenly while she was speaking the ironical contrast hit him. Here was he amazed at his mother for daring to contemplate a step that would do his father harm, while he, he who professed to love his father, was about to do something that would cause the whole town to talk for a year. But that was different. Surely it was different. He was young and must make his own life. He must be allowed to marry whom he would. It was not as though he were intending to ruin the girl....
Nevertheless, this sudden comparison bewildered and shocked him.
He leant across the table to her. "You must never leave father--never," he said. "You mustn't think of it. He wants you badly. He mayn't show it exactly as you want it. Men aren't demonstrative as women are, but he'd be miserable if you went away. He loves you in his own fashion, which is just as good as yours, only different. You must never leave him, mother, do you hear?"