“There is the room that Dan used to paint in, Annie!” spluttered Uncle Robert, his words tumbling over each other in his excitement. “The boys could have that for a play-room. I can get some tools, and some wood, and a lathe—we should not hear the lathe much up there. The big cupboard with drawers underneath would be very handy for the boys. Mrs. Henderson can have the other big attic to stow away her furniture if she wishes to keep it. It is a ramshackle lot, Lane says, but still, she may like to keep it. Women get attached to these things. Mrs. Henderson should have a room for herself with a south aspect. What a good thing Hawk’s Nest is so roomy!”
Philip saw all these preparations going on, and saw that his mother went hand and glove with his uncle in the matter. He marvelled that she, with her dainty ways, should be so willing to suffer such an invasion of her home. Will and Eric the Colonel had called “destroying angels,” and Mrs. Henderson, by his accounts, was a broken-hearted creature, who would be a very wet blanket. True brother and sister. Both were always forgetting self.
All at once (it had been when Philip had noticed his mother trying to smooth out the lovely natural wave of her hair) Philip began to actually realize that he—yes, he, in his domineering arrogance, had closed the door of happiness to his beautiful mother. Her youthful aspect struck her son more forcibly than ever in the plain gown she had affected, he knew, just to meet his wishes. Her charming figure was emphasized by the plain, well-fitting bodice.
Philip felt guilty as he watched his mother smoothing her hair. It seemed to him he was always feeling guilty lately.
“Mother,” he said abruptly, as he fingered the pretty silver objects on her toilet table. (He had strolled into her room and seated himself on a chintz-covered chair while she got ready to go out with him.) “Mother, don’t brush that wave out. I like it. It is so pretty.”
“You dear!” she exclaimed, laughing and blushing; “but you know you think it almost a crime for the mother of a grown-up son to look pretty!”
“I think,” affirmed Philip humbly, “that I have been a dictatorial ass. I must have made you very unhappy often, mother. Can you forgive me?”
She turned shining eyes upon him, eyes that had never looked but in love upon him from the time when he had first lain upon her breast. She had been almost a child herself, then.
“You are my own boy,” she said. “There can never be any question of forgiving between us.”
She laughed a little, though tears stood in her eyes. “I am afraid I do look absurdly young, Philip, and I feel young, which is more. I don’t think I really felt so young when I was Annie Burns.”