“She said she thought she understood better now. I told her about you, Boy, and what a good son you had been to me. How you had sacrificed your future and your career for my sake. Of course I could not go into particulars, at all, but we talked a great deal about you, Roscoe.”
“That must have been deliriously interesting—to her.”
“I think it was. She told me of your helping her home through the storm, and of something else you had not told me, Boy: of your bringing her and Mr. Carver off the flat in the boat that day. Why did you keep that a secret?”
“It was not worth telling.”
“She thought it was. She laughed about it; said you handled the affair in a most businesslike and unsentimental way; she never felt more like a bundle of dry-goods in her life, but that that appeared to be your manner of handling people. It was a somewhat startling manner, but very effective, she said. I don't know what she meant by that.”
I knew, but I did not explain.
“You don't mean to say, Mother, that you glorified me to her for an hour?” I demanded.
“No, indeed. We talked of ever so many things. Of books, and pictures, and music. I'm afraid I was rather wearisome. It seemed so good to have some one—except you, of course, dear—to discuss such subjects with. Most of my callers are not interested in them.”
I was silent.
“She is coming again, she says,” continued Mother. “She has some new books she is going to lend me. You must read them to me. And aren't those roses wonderful? She picked them, herself, in their conservatory. I told her how fond you were of flowers.”