"John, please," his mother said, gently, "please don't allow anything to spoil our one day of the week together."
"But, mother——" he began.
"My boy! Please," she pleaded.
He had never gone against her wishes when she spoke to him like that. He patted her arm and smiled.
"All right, mother, dearest," he said, "we'll forget all about it now. This is our day together and nothing shall impair it."
How glad he would have been to have been able to have told her of his love for Consuello! How much help she could have been to him, now that he was about to ruin the man Consuello had agreed to take as her husband. If "that" Mrs. Sprockett, who was fostering his mother's prejudice against motion pictures and motion picture players, would only stay more at home with her colicky baby instead of playing the part of a hypocritical Puritan. A passage from Proverbs his father had often quoted returned to him.
"Where no wood is there the fire goeth out; so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth."
But he chased these thoughts from his head to be a companion to his mother. They admired flowers in gardens of homes they passed, studied interesting architecture they caught sight of, planned a picnic in the foothills—John thought of the spot where he had watched Consuello before the cameras—recited bits of poetry to each other and enjoyed the afternoon more than any since the death of Mr. Gallant, who had always led them on their Sunday "tramps," as he called them.
It was earlier than usual when they returned to their home. They shortened their outing because of John's promise to Brennan to see Murphy before morning and obtain from him an affidavit to be used in the printed exposure of Cummings and Gibson.