“Were you too ill to go along with your company?”
“—and—there—was—some—work—in—camp that—needed—to—be—done—and there was enough without me, and—I—I—”
“That is sufficient,” said the elder man with a look of scorn that presently changed into one of deeply wounded pride. “Henry, I know too well your disposition to shirk the unpleasant duties of life, to be much surprised that, when tried by this test, you were found wanting. But this wounds me deeply. People in Sardis think my disposition hard and exacting; they think I care for little except to get all that is due me. But no man here can say that in all his long life Robert Glen shirked or evaded a single duty that he owed to the community or his fellow-men, no matter how dangerous or disagreeable that duty might be. To have you fail in this respect and to take and maintain your place in the front rank with other men is a terrible blow to my pride.”
“O, Harry, is that you?” said his mother, coming into the room at that moment and throwing herself into her son's arms. “I was lying down when I heard your voice, and I dressed and hurried down as quickly as possible. I am so glad that you have come home all safe and well. I know that you'll contradict, for your poor mother's sake, all these horrible stories that are worrying her almost to death.”
“Unfortunately he has just admitted that those stories are substantially true,” said the father curtly.
“I won't believe it,” sobbed his mother, “until he tells me so himself. You didn't, did you, back out of a fight, and let that Bob Bennett, whose mother used to be my sewing girl, and whom I supported for months after he was born, and his father died with the cholera and left her nothing, by giving her work and paying her cash, and who is now putting on all sorts of airs because everybody's congratulating her on having such a wonderful son, and nobody's congratulating me at all, and sometimes I almost which I was dead.”
Clearness of statement was never one of Mrs. Glen's salient characteristics. Nor did deep emotion help her in this regard. Still it was only too evident that the fountains of her being were moved by having another woman's son exalted over her own. Her maternal pride and social prestige were both quivering under the blow.
Harry met this with a flank movement.
“You both seem decidedly disappointed that I did not get myself wounded or killed,” he said.
“That's an unmanly whimper,” said his father contemptuously.