“You're giving me a perfectly lovely time,” she told her. “And Tim is such a good playfellow!”
Elisabeth's face seemed suddenly to glow with that inner radiance which praise of her beloved Tim alone was able to inspire.
“Only that, Sara?” she said very quietly. Yet somehow Sara knew that she meant to have an answer to her question.
“Why—why——” she stammered a little. “Isn't that enough?”—trying to speak lightly.
Elisabeth shook her head.
“Tim wants more than a playfellow. Can't you give him what he wants, Sara?”
Sara was silent a moment.
“I didn't know he had told you,” she said, at last, rather lamely.
“Nor has he. Tim is loyal to the core. But a mother doesn't need telling these things.” Elisabeth's beautiful voice deepened. “Tim is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh—and he's soul of my soul as well. Do you think, then, that I shouldn't know when he is hurt?”
Sara was strangely moved. There was something impressive in the restrained passion of Elisabeth's speech, a certain primitive grandeur in her envisagement of the relationship of mother and son.