“Philip, am I so very old?” She laughed girlishly through her tears.
How charming was this mother, after all! Philip, looking at her as she stood there in the moonlight, realized that the Colonel could not well be blamed.
Philip loved her dearly though a little selfishly, as we have shown. His next words proved this still more.
“I could not bear it, mother—to lose you. I have always been first in your heart, and now, I have only you in all the world!”
Mrs. Barrimore’s love and pity rose at these words, in such a flood to her tender heart, that she was glad even, that she had to-night made a sacrifice for her boy’s sake. To her, it had been sweet to dwell for even half an hour in the paradise, the door of which was now closed against her. Being a woman, and a loving woman, she had longed for love such as other women had, and which she had never known till to-night, when the grizzled soldier had spoken.
She might well have reminded Philip that he had twice dethroned her in his affections. First for Eweretta and secondly for his work.
Being what she was, she held her peace.
But Colonel Lane had his own views. He was what Phyllis called very “grumpy” on the way home, and when she mentioned Philip, had said:
“There is a good deal too much of Philip at Hawk’s Nest.”
Whereupon Phyllis the “cute” drew her own conclusions.