CHAPTER XXV
A CRISIS
"Do you think I will ever let you go away from us again?" This was Erskine Burnham's word to his mother when he had her all to himself in the carriage. His arms were about her, and he was kissing eyes and nose and hair after the fashion of his childhood.
"Such a wicked, wicked grandmother! Does she think she deserves the most beautiful, most intelligent grandson that ever drew breath?"
Throughout that drive they were very gay; both of them covered under the semblance of merrymaking, the deep feeling that neither wished just then to express.
Only once, as the carriage turned in at the familiar gateway, did Erskine trust himself to a tender word:—
"O mommie, mommie! do you suppose you know anything about how a boy feels to get his mother again?"
"My boy!" she began, but her voice broke, and she could not utter another word. And then the carriage drew up before the side entrance, and Erskine became very busy with the bags and wraps, and believed that his mother's emotion was the natural feeling of a grandmother on coming into her possession.