“Why weren’t you?”
“My mother couldn’t afford it. Besides, I couldn’t leave her. She hasn’t anybody but me.”
“I know. You’re awfully fond of her, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said shortly.
They had passed down the turn of the street into the Market Square. There was a plot of grass laid down in the north-east corner. Two tall elms stood up on the grass, and behind the elms a small, ivy-covered house with mullioned windows, looking south.
“That’s our house,” Hollyer said. “Won’t you come in and see her?”
They found her sitting by herself in the little cramped, green drawing-room. She was the most beautiful old lady; small, upright and perfect; slender, like a girl, in her grey silk blouse. She had a miniature oval face, pretty and white: a sharp chin, and a wide forehead under a pile of pure white hair. And sorrowful blue eyes, white-lidded, in two rings of mauve and bistre.
She couldn’t be so very old, Effie thought. Not more than sixty.
Mrs. Hollyer rose, holding out a fragile hand.
Presently she said: “I wanted to see you; after all you’ve done for him.”