For the moment, they were lovers of thirty-odd years agone; their children forgotten, they were sufficient unto themselves.
"I know just how you feel, Nellie. I have done my best to spare you—I have not connived or condoned. And I'll say this for our son: He's been open and above-board with her and with me. He's young, and in a moment of that passion that comes to young men—aye, and young women, too, for you and I have known it—he told her what was in his heart, even while his head warned him to keep quiet. It seems to me sometimes that 'tis something that was to be."
"Oh, Hector, it mustn't be! It cannot be!"
"I'm hoping it will not be, Nellie. I'll do my best to stop it."
"But, Hector, why did you support him a moment ago?"
He flapped a hand to indicate a knowledge of his own incomprehensible conduct.
"She'd called for him, Nellie. Poor bairn, her heart went out to the one she knew would help her, and, by God, Nellie, I felt for her! You're a woman, Nellie. Think—if one of your own daughters was wishful for a kind word and a helping hand from an honorable gentleman and some fool father forbade it. Nellie wife, my heart and my head are sore tangled, sore tangled—"
His voice broke. He was shaken with emotion. He had stood much and he had stood it alone; while it had never occurred to him to think so, he had been facing life pretty much alone for a decade. It would have eased his surcharged spirit could he have shed a few manly tears, if his wife had taken his leonine old head on her shoulder and lavished upon him the caresses his hungry heart yearned for. Unfortunately, she was that type of wife whose first and only thought is for her children. She was aware only that he was in a softened mood, so she said,
"Don't you think you've been a little hard on poor Jane, Hector dear?"
"No, I do not. She's cruel, selfish, and uncharitable."