"Yes, though your going away was none of the pleasantest," she said, in an injured voice, while with the tips of her fingers she arranged on her temples the thick crimped hair slightly disturbed by his caress.
"I am sorry for it, mother," he said, with the same curious smile, "and I regret to state that, unpleasant as it was, you may find it was not equal to my return."
"What do you mean?" she said, peevishly, "and why doesn't that man fetch in your things?"
"I told him to hold his horses until I came back. I have a present for you," and he turned and went down the steps while his mother returned to the shelter of the porch.
Suddenly she became as rigid as the door-post behind her. The present was taking on the shape of all things in the world most hateful to her. A young girl of medium height was coming up the steps, and bending over her in a protecting attitude was her son Justin.
They paused for an instant before her. Mrs. Prymmer had a brief confused vision of a big, beautiful wax doll whose limpid eyes shone out of a mist of light hair, then her son flashed her a swift glance, and seeing that he could hope for no response, laid a hand on the shoulder of the vision and withdrew it.
Mrs. Prymmer, brushing by the cabman who was staggering in under the weight of a trunk, marched solemnly into the hall, opened the door of the parlour, and, lighting the gas, sat down in an armchair of imposing proportions and awaited an explanation.
Her son had conducted his companion to the dining-room. She heard a few low-spoken words, then his heavy step came through the hall, and, entering the room, he sat before her.
"I don't know what some women would call this," she said, compressing her lips till there was nothing but a thin streak of red between them, "but I call it an insult."
"It is not intended as an insult," he said. "Perhaps if you will wait till I explain—"