“Henry—I didn’t think it of you—at least not here, not under my very roof. And if you were going to break my heart like your father, it would have been kinder to do it ten years ago, because then I should have known what to expect, and anyhow, I should probably have been dead by now.”
She sniffed and made a desperate gesture.
“Oh, Henry, I can’t find it! Haven’t you got one, or don’t you care whether my heart’s broken? And I haven’t even got a handkerchief to cry with.”
Henry produced a handkerchief and gave it to her without attempting to speak. Years of experience had taught him that to stay his mother’s first flood of words was an impossibility.
Jane felt rather sick. Mrs. March was so very large and pink, and the whole affair so very undignified, that her one overmastering desire was to get away. She heard Henry’s “This is Miss Smith, Mother. She came to see me on business”; and then Mrs. March’s wail, “Your father always called it business too, and I didn’t think—no, I didn’t think you’d bring a girl in here when my back was turned.”
Jane stood up very straight, but Henry had taken her hand again.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, in a very low voice. “She—she had a rotten time when she was young”; then, in a tone that cut through Mrs. March’s sobs as an east wind cuts the rain, he said:
“My dear mother, you are making some extra-ordinary mistake. The last time that I saw Miss Smith was three years ago. I then asked her to marry me, and she refused. I would go on asking her every day from now to kingdom come if I thought that it was the slightest good. As it isn’t, I am only anxious to be of use to her in any possible way. She came here to-night to ask my advice on an official matter.”
Mrs. March fixed her very large blue eyes upon her son. They were swimming with tears, but behind the tears there was something which suddenly went to Jane’s heart—something bewildered and hurt, and rather ungrown-up.
“You always were a good boy, Henry,” said Mrs. March, and Henry’s instant rigid embarrassment had the effect of cheering Jane. She came forward and took the limp white hand that still clutched a borrowed handkerchief.