“Ah, that was different, I admit. But I never could retaliate, or seem to, even in the smallest thing. I don’t want him to suffer as I suffered.”
It was almost a cry for pity, and Peter Junior wondered in his heart at the depth of anguish she must have endured in those days, when he had thrust the thought of her opposition to one side as merely an obstacle overcome, and had felt the triumph of winning out in the contest, as one step toward independent manhood. Now, indeed, their viewpoints had changed. He felt almost a sense of pique that she had yielded so joyously and so suddenly, although confronted with the prospect of a long separation from him. Did she love him less than in the past? Had his former disregard of her wishes lessened even a trifle her mother love for him?
“I’m glad you can take the thought of my going as you do, mother.” He spoke coldly, as an only son may, but he was to be excused. He was less spoiled than most only sons.
“In what way, my son?”
“Why––in being glad to have me go––instead of feeling as you did then.”
“Glad? Glad to have you go? It isn’t that, dear. Understand me. I’m sorry I spoke of that old time. It was only to spare your father. You see we look at things differently. He loves to have us follow out his plans. It is almost––death to him to have to give up; and with me––it was not then as it is now. I don’t like to think or speak of that time.”
“Don’t, mother, don’t!” cried Peter, contritely.
“But I must to make you see this as you should. It was love for you then that made me cling to you, and want to 101 hold you back from going; just the same it is love for you now that makes me want you to go out and find your right place in the world. I was letting you go then to be shot at––to suffer fatigue, and cold, and imprisonment, who could know, perhaps to be cruelly killed––and I did not believe in war. I suppose your father was the nobler in his way of thinking, but I could not see it his way. Angels from heaven couldn’t have made me believe it right; but it’s over. Now I know your life will be made broader by going, and you’ll have scope, at least, to know what you really wish to do with yourself and what you are worth, as you would not have, to sit down in your father’s bank, although you would be safer there, no doubt. But you went through all the temptations of the army safely, and I have no fear for you now, dear, no fear.”
Peter Junior’s heart melted. He took his mother in his arms and stroked her beautiful white hair. “I love you, mother, dear,” was all he could say. Should he tell her of Betty now? The question died in his heart. It was too much. He would be all hers for a little, nor intrude the new love that she might think divided his heart. He returned to the question of his father’s consent. “Mother, what shall I do if he will not give it?”