“Yes. This is a far better post—as you must see, mother, with a chance of promotion. I mean to command one of these fine ships yet.”
“But must you go so soon? You are expected to go to the marriage to-morrow.”
“Yes. And I would have liked to see the last o’ May Dawson. But ‘business before pleasure,’ ye ken, mother; and nobody will miss me, I dare say. And Marion will say all that is needful to the bride.”
Willie spoke cheerily—too cheerily, his mother thought, to be quite natural. “No thought of Jean Dawson shall ever come between my mother and me,” Willie was thinking. “Even if she cared for me, it could never be; and I must get away from the sight of her, or I shall do something foolish, and give my mother all the old pain over again.” Then after a long time of silence, he said, “If you were to live in Liverpool, or near it, mother, I could see you oftener than if I had to come to Portie.”
“Yes, I have been thinking of that.”
“Marion wouldna like it?”
“No, I dare say not. But it might be well for her to have a change.”
“Well, then, that is settled. But there need be no haste, mother.”
“A month or two sooner or later would make little difference.”
And then they were silent again. Mrs Calderwood was thinking, “I am sorrier for her than I am for him. He is a man, with a man’s work to do, and he will forget her. But as for Jean—she’s no’ the kind of woman to forget.”