Our numbers were called at this point, and the conversation was never continued. Every word you had said recalled to me my former friend, and I understood your repugnance for anything cowardly.
At the last of these operas, by another perverse joke of Dame Fortune, who seems to have so many laughs at my expense, I was introduced to the chaperon, “Mrs. Polhemus.” Looking up, I found myself facing my mother. I cannot tell you how strangely I felt in making my bow. She was as handsome as ever, it appeared to me, and the smooth rich olive complexion seemed to have given her an undying youth. For a moment I feared recognition, but the difference was too great between the pallid stooping boy of fifteen she had last seen in Paris and the straight bronzed man of twenty-seven. As of old she was magnificently dressed and fairly glittered with diamonds, which curiously enough instantly brought to my mind the face of my father as I kissed him last. Was it the strong connection of contrast, or was it a quirk of my brain?
This chance meeting had a sequel that pains me to this day. Dining the next evening at the Blodgetts’ with you and your uncle, the latter spoke of my mother’s diamonds. Mrs. Blodgett said, with a laugh, “One would think, after her rich marriage, that she might pay up the money her first husband stole from Maizie.”
“She could have done that years ago if she had cared to,” sneered Mr. Walton.
Your eyes were lowered, and you still kept them so as you replied, “I would not accept the money from Mrs. Polhemus.”
In my suffering I sat rigid and speechless, wincing inwardly at each blow of the lash, when Mr. Blodgett, with a kindness I can never reward or even acknowledge, observed, “I believe it was his wife’s extravagance which made William Maitland a bankrupt and an embezzler. Till his marriage with her he was a man of simple habits and of unquestioned business honesty, but he was caught by her looks, just as Polhemus has been. In those first years he could deny her nothing, and when the disillusionment came he was too deep in to prevent the wreck.”
“You’ve been revising your views a bit,” retorted Mr. Walton. “I never expected to hear you justify any of that family.”
“Perhaps I have reason to,” replied Mr. Blodgett.
“I don’t believe any of those Maitlands have the least honesty!” exclaimed Agnes. “How I hate them!”
“It is not a subject of which I like to speak,” you stated in an evidently controlled voice, still with lowered eyes, “but it is only right to say that some one—I suppose the son—is beginning to pay back the debt.”