“Then it wasn’t for me; it was for himself that he has worked and built up the bank. It’s his bank, and his wife, and his son, and his ‘Tower of Babel that he has builded,’ and now he wants me to bury myself in it and worship at his idolatry.”
“Hush, Peter. I don’t like to rebuke you, but I must. You can twist facts about and see them in a wrong light, but the truth remains that he has loved you tenderly––always. I know his heart better than you––better than he. It is only that he thinks the line he has taken a lifetime to lay out for you is the best. He is as sure of it as that the days follow each other. He sees only futility in the way you would go. I have no doubt his heart is sore over it at this moment, and that he is grieving in a way that would shock you, could you comprehend it.”
“Enough said, mother, enough said. I’ll try to be fair.”
He went to his room and stood looking out at the rain-washed earth and the falling leaves. The sky was heavy 107 and drab. He thought of Betty and her picnic and of how gay and sweet she was, and how altogether desirable, and the thought wrought a change in his spirit. He went downstairs and kissed his mother; then he, too, put on his rubber overshoes and shook himself into his raincoat and carefully adjusted his hat and his umbrella. Then with the assistance of the old blackthorn stick he walked away in the rain, limping, it is true, but nevertheless a younger, sturdier edition of the man who had passed out before him.
He found Betty alone as he had hoped, for Mary Ballard had gone to drive her husband to the station. Bertrand was thinking of opening a studio in the city, at his wife’s earnest solicitation, for she thought him buried there in their village. As for the children––they were still in school.
Thus it came about that Peter Junior spent the rest of that day with Betty in her father’s studio. He told Betty all his plans. He made love to her and cajoled her, and was happy indeed. He had a winsome way, and he made her say she loved him––more than once or twice––and his heart was satisfied.
“We’ll be married just as soon as I return from Paris, and you’ll not miss me so much until then?”
“Oh, no.”
“Ah––but––but I hope you will––you know.”
“Of course I shall! What would you suppose?”