"You may safely trust my pride for that," she replied.
"Do you think your father ought to be included in our confidence," inquired Mrs. King.
"No indeed," she replied, hastily. "He never can bear to hear my poor husband mentioned. Besides, he has had the gout a good deal lately, and is more irritable than usual."
As she rose to go, Mrs. King said: "Then, with the exception of
Eulalia, everything remains outwardly as it was. Can you forgive me?
I do believe I was insane with misery; and you don't know how I have
been haunted with remorse."
"You must have suffered terribly," rejoined Mrs. Fitzgerald, evading a direct answer to the question. "But we had better not talk any more about it now. I am bewildered, and don't know what to think. Only one thing is fixed in my mind: Gerald is my son."
They parted politely, but with coldness on Mrs. Fitzgerald's side. There had arisen in her mind a double dislike toward Mrs. King, as the first love of her husband, and as the mother of the elegant young man who was to her an object of pride as well as fondness. But her chagrin was not without compensation. Mrs. King's superior wealth and beauty had been felt by her as somewhat overshadowing; and the mortifying circumstances she had now discovered in her history seemed, in her imagination, to bring her down below a level with herself. She and Gerald sat up late into the night, talking over this strange disclosure. She was rather jealous of the compassion he expressed for Mrs. King, and of his admiration for her manners and character; though they mutually declared, again and again, that they could realize no change whatever in their relation to each other.
The wise words of Mr. King had not been without their effect on Gerald. The tumult of emotions gradually subsided; and he began to realize that these external accidents made no essential change in himself. The next morning he requested an interview with Mrs. King, and was received alone. When he entered, she cast upon him a hesitating, beseeching look; but when he said, "My mother!" she flew into his arms, and wept upon his neck.
"Then you do not hate me?" she said, in a voice choked with emotion,
"You are not ashamed to call me mother?"
"It was only yesterday," he replied, "that I thought with pride and joy of the possibility that I might some day call you by that dear name. If I had heard these particulars without knowing you, they might have repelled me. But I have admired you from the first moment; I have lately been learning to love you; and I am familiar with the thought of being your son."
She raised her expressive eyes to his with such a look of love, that he could not refrain from giving her a filial kiss and pressing her warmly to his heart. "I was so afraid you would regard me with dislike," said she. "You can understand now why it made me so faint to think of singing 'M'odi! Ah, m'odi!' with you at Mrs. Green's party. How could I have borne your tones of anguish when you discovered that you were connected with the Borgias? And how could I have helped falling on your neck when you sang 'Madre mia'? But I must not forget that the mother who tended your childhood has the best claim to your affection," she added mournfully.