On the third day after Dick's departure for the West she got up when she heard him coming in, and putting on her dressing gown and slippers, knocked at his door.
“Come in,” he called ungraciously.
She found him with his coat off, standing half defiantly with a glass of whisky and soda in his hand. She went up to him and took it from him.
“We've had enough of that in the family, Wallie,” she said. “And it's a pretty poor resource in time of trouble.”
“I'll have that back, if you don't mind.”
“Nonsense,” she said briskly, and flung it, glass and all, out of the window. She was rather impressive when she turned.
“I've been a fairly indulgent mother,” she said. “I've let you alone, because it's a Sayre trait to run away when they feel a pull on the bit. But there's a limit to my patience, and it is reached when my son drinks to forget a girl.”
He flushed and glowered at her in somber silence, but she moved about the room calmly, giving it a housekeeper's critical inspection, and apparently unconscious of his anger.
“I don't believe you ever cared for any one in all your life,” he said roughly. “If you had, you would know.”
She was straightening a picture over the mantel, and she completed her work before she turned.