"I had quite a little visit with Mr. Parker while you were entertaining the others with those pictures; I was much interested in him; he is a young man of good principle, isn't he? One on whom education will tell. It is lovely in you and Erskine to open your home to him in this way; it will be sure to mean much to him; and it ought to help the little sister, too. It is pleasant to see how fond he is of her."
"You helped," said Mrs. Burnham, significantly. "I am more grateful for your help to-night than the mere words will express."
She kissed her as she spoke, and felt in her heart that she was willing that Erskine should marry this girl to-morrow, if he would.
"I was glad of the opportunity," the girl said simply. "And so, I am sure, was Ranford. He is very much interested in young men of this type."
For a full half hour after "Jim" had carried off his pouting sister,—whose parting shot had been that she considered it "awfully pokey" for a girl to go home from a dinner-party with "nothing but her brother"—spoken in a pretended confidence to him, but loud enough for all to hear,—silence reigned in the Burnham parlor.
Erskine had a desk in one of its corners, where he kept certain of his books, and studied, whenever he chose to remain with his mother. He flung himself down before it the moment the door closed after their guests, as though work pressed hard.
His mother took a book and sat silent and apparently absorbed, although as a matter of fact, instead of reading, she was studying the half-averted face that was drawn in almost stern lines, and the eyes that stared at the open page as though they did not see its words. She did not believe that Erskine was studying Latin.
What had this terrible evening done for him, and for her? Had that pretty-faced, ill-dressed, ill-bred girl secured in some unaccountable way a permanent hold on her son's heart? Might it not be possible that in giving him this awful view of her in sharp contrast with Alice Warder she had but alienated him from herself? Perhaps she had blundered, and perhaps the consequences of her blunder would be fatal to them both. Why had she done it? Why had she not waited, and watched, and understood better before she attempted anything? What should she do now? How was she to bear this silence? And yet, what might not Erskine say when at last he broke it?
A half-hour passed and neither mother nor son had turned a page. Suddenly he wheeled his chair around so that she could get a full view of his face, and smiled a half-sad, half-whimsical smile, and spoke his word:—
"I don't believe we can do it, Mommie. It was good in you to try, and you did it royally, as you do things, but—she can't be assimilated. She doesn't belong. We shall have to wait until she goes home before we can do much for Parker. All the same, mother, you understand that I thank you for the effort. Alice was superb to-night, wasn't she?"