‘What stewardship?’ he said.
‘I cease to-day to be your guardian, John, and your trustee and manager and everything. My father thought it unnecessary to burden you with any of those things. He had perhaps an excessive confidence in me. I have now to give up my accounts——’
‘I want no accounts,’ he said: ‘I want to hear nothing about it. If I am to be acknowledged a man, that’s enough. I’ve been to my own consciousness a man—and older than most people—long enough.’
‘Yes,’ she said, with a little sigh, ‘you are a man; you have proved yourself one. The softest of mothers (and I know I have never been soft) could not acknowledge that with more gratitude and satisfaction than I.’
‘But a little grudge,’ he said, with a laugh. He was able to laugh now, though never to forget altogether the bitterness of being misjudged. He no longer talked to her with constraint, feeling himself like a child in her presence—but even yet he was never really at his ease with her. ‘With a grudge,’ he said. ‘You would almost rather I had confirmed your bad opinion, and justified you in what you expected.’
‘I can’t hope that you will understand me—in that respect,’ she said, with a little wave of her hand dismissing the subject. If she did not repent of her evil expectations, she was at least a little ashamed of them, and desired no recurrence to the subject. ‘Look here,’ she said, ‘this is an account of all my incomings and outgoings for the last four years.’
‘I don’t want to see them,’ said John. ‘I am sure you have always done what was best for me.’
‘And, for the future, here is the statement of what you have at your disposal. Surely, at least, you will look at that.’
‘Mother,’ said John, ‘if it is anything worth counting, couldn’t you take it, and get a little rest? All this upon your shoulders from year to year, never any ease or repose, must wear you out. Why don’t you give up, and take Susie to see a little of the world—of course I don’t know if there’s enough for that,’ he added, hastily, with momentary confusion.
‘Mother, didn’t I tell you!’ said Susie, a flush of pleasure rising over her face.