Her tone softened him. Was ever a voice so tender—even Eweretta’s! Was ever love so great or patience so enduring as this mother’s?
He with his moods, his trying moods, his irritability—but—was she not going to fail him?
“Mother,” he said gently as he drew her hand through his arm, “I have been on the West Hill in a vile temper. Mother, tell me I have been mistaken. I—”
She interrupted him tremulously.
“Dear, I think I understand,” she said. “Have you only just seen it? I will tell you everything, and then, dearest, I will ask you not to refer to it again. Colonel Lane asked me to marry him to-night.”
“And you?” he asked abruptly.
“I refused him.”
“My own mother!” Philip said, drawing her close and kissing her. He found her cheek wet.
“I knew,” she said, with a break in her voice, “that you would not wish it.”
“Is it likely?” he broke out in his masterful way. “You have done with all that sort of thing. It is for girls in their teens, not for mothers of grown-up sons. At your time of life—”