She was silent, walked on, with his arm in hers; and it seemed to her that new vistas suddenly opened out before her. No, she never thought that he was going to speak to her of his future. It had always been so positively settled, from the very beginning, that her son should take up the life and the career which she had ruined for his father. She had always looked upon it as a vague form of compensation which Addie, her son, would pay to her husband, to his father. She had never imagined that it would be otherwise. It could be done: he bore a distinguished name, he would have money later on and, once he had entered the profession which in their set had always been considered so eminent and honourable and illustrious—the most eminent, honourable and illustrious of all—he would console his father for the ruin of his career and restore to his mother something of her old position in society.... She had always, almost unconsciously, looked at it like that. And then there was still a grain of vanity in her, dormant, it was true, of late, but still an eternal, ineradicable germ: the vanity inherent in her, the vanity of thinking that her son would pursue that most eminent, honourable and illustrious career. Now her whole world seemed to be turned upside down: the shock, the surprise, the disappointment made her dizzy; and through it all there came a sudden impulse to say no, no, no, that it was impossible, quite impossible, that it would give too much pain to Papa, to herself, to poor old Grandmamma and certainly to his grandparents as well; and, if he insisted, to say to him imperiously, almost in a tone of command, that it was out of the question, out of the question. But for the moment she said nothing; and he said nothing either; and they walked on, along the grey ribbon of the road, which ran on through the meadows fleeing on either side to the last streak of light on the horizon, under the great starry skies. He said nothing, as if he had said all that he had to say, quietly and simply. And she was too much under the influence of that tumult of shock, surprise and disappointment....
"Does it upset you, Mamma?" he asked, at last.
"It comes as a blow, Addie.... I never expected it...."
"Can't you understand that I...?"
"Understand? I don't know, Addie. We always thought...."
"Yes, I know: you and Papa always thought differently. I understand that it must upset you and that it is a disappointment."
"You had better speak to Papa first...."
"No," he said, calmly and quietly. "I want to speak to you, first, Mamma. You know how fond I am of my father, what chums we are. But I can't speak to him first, because he would not understand. And I want to speak to you first, Mamma, because you will understand."
There was something soothing to her vanity in his words, but also something deeper underlying them, which was not at once clear to her; for she knew that he loved his father more than her and yet he wanted to speak to her first....
"You will understand, Mamma, when I tell you. I don't feel in any way cut out for a career in which, no doubt, one can rise very high if one happened to be one of the four or five great men who stand out in it.... And even so ... even if I were one of those four or five—always supposing I had the brains or the genius for it, which I haven't and never shall have—then there would still be something in me which would make me feel that I had missed my vocation, that it was all purposeless, that I had got into the wrong path, into the wrong sort of work. I should always be too simple, Mamma, and too natural, your Dutch boy...."