"Yes, I'm coming out of my retirement, after twenty years, and we'll make a sensation, I promise you." She patted his hand, feeling that the grateful love in his eyes was ample reward for all this resolution had cost her. "She's brightened my life so much since she came. I'm beginning to take an interest in things, for the first time since I lost your dear father."
"I'm very glad of that, very glad, mother—and happy."
"Now, may I creep in and kiss her good-night, when I go upstairs?" asked Lady Canning, rising.
"I wouldn't, mother," answered Thurston, quietly.
"I won't wake her," assured Lady Canning.
"I think you had better not, mother," said Thurston, in the same quiet tone.
"Very well, just as you say. I can't blame you, even if you are over-anxious. Give her my love and a kiss." She paused at the door, looking thoughtfully in his face. "We must love her very much, Thurston. And if there are any faults, we must deal gently with them, because—she is very young, and from what I saw of her people, she could have had no bringing up whatever."
It seemed strange to hear his mother pleading for Indiana just at that moment. "Good-night, mother." She put her arms about his neck and kissed him. He threw himself in a chair, after she left the room, feeling deeply depressed. "If there are any faults, we must deal gently with them." His mother's words always carried their own weight. Her unconscious intercession had touched his heart. He was ready to do everything, to make every extenuation, but he felt a dull premonition that Indiana would ask for none. Neither would she care. This was the worst. His hidden wound throbbed painfully.
Jennings crept into the room. When he saw Thurston, sitting with his head bowed upon his hands, his face became an image of distress. He looked at the clock, then back again to the hopeless figure in the chair. Thurston raised his head suddenly. "What are you prowling about for, Jennings?"
"I—I just looked in to see after that danged fire," said Jennings, in confusion, tottering to the fire and poking the logs.