He pondered for a time over a disconcerting thought that possibly it had not been proper after all, for Consuello to have allowed him to see her in her dressing room, alone, without having previously mentioned to Gibson her intention of doing such a thing. It had been obvious that Gibson was genuinely surprised when he found John with her. He finally dismissed any apprehension created by this thought by recalling Consuello's apparent guilelessness.
He fatigued his brain in a vain endeavor to decide upon some means of overcoming his mother's prejudice. Setting aside the fact that he wanted them to be friends, to know and find in each other the things he admired in them, the principle of the whole affair concerned him. He remembered how different his father had been, how tolerant, how ready to withhold adverse judgment of a person until both sides of the story had been heard.
Weary, unhappy, disconcerted, he went to his bedroom and puzzled over his problem until he fell asleep. Mrs. Gallant had composed herself, somewhat severely, when he saw her in the morning at breakfast. There was a trace of haggardness in her face that told him she, too, had spent a restless night.
"Mother, dear," he said, holding her in his arms before he left for work, "you know how much I love you." She seemed to yield a little in response to his tenderness.
"I know, my boy," she said, "and you must realize how much I care for you."
"Oh, I do, I do," he said, "you have always been a wonderful, wonderful mother to me. Remember, nothing must come between us."
Her severe aspect, which, he knew, she assumed to compose herself, disappeared and the love that she bore him as her first and only son shone in her eyes as she kissed him when he left. It was like the kisses she had given him when he was a grammar school boy.
Later in the day John met an old friend whom he had almost forgotten. It was the scrawny youth with the twisted nose and the husky voice who had been a second in his corner the night he fought Battling Rodriguez to get money to pay for his father's funeral. He remembered the youth as Murphy when he met him lounging at the counter of a cigar stand at the entrance to one of Spring street's most celebrated saloons, which now was converted into a soft drink and lunch establishment and which was frequented by men who loitered in and around it for the associations it held for them and the memory of other days.
Murphy, a brown paper cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth, hailed him as he passed.
"If it ain't da Gallant kid!" he said, speaking from beneath the visor of his cloth cap, pulled tightly around his ears. They shook hands.