In such circumstances I might as well have tried to sting a sand-bank, so I said, rather off my watch, “If I have done all this for you, why did I do it?”
She made no answer in words, but seemed to grow taller in the chair, so that I could see her shoulders, and I knew from this that she was now holding herself conceitedly and trying to look modest. “Not a bit of it, ma'am,” said I sharply, “that was not the reason at all.”
I was pleased to see her whisk round, rather indignant at last.
“I never said it was,” she retorted with spirit, “I never thought for a moment that it was.” She added, a trifle too late in the story, “Besides, I don't know what you are talking of.”
I think I must have smiled here, for she turned from me quickly, and became quite little in the chair again.
“David,” said I mercilessly, “did you ever see your mother blush?”
“What is blush?”
“She goes a beautiful pink colour.”
David, who had by this time broken my connection with the head office, crossed to his mother expectantly.
“I don't, David,” she cried.