“Very well, dear,” she said; “but you need not be so emphatically excited about it–––”
“I’m not excited––but it irritates me to be expected to do anything because it’s expected of me––” He shrugged his shoulders:
“After all,” he added, “if I ever should fall in love with anybody it’s my own business. And whatever I choose to do about it will be my own affair. And I shall keep my own counsel in any event.”
His mother stepped forward, letting both her hands fall into his.
“Wouldn’t you tell me about it, Jim?”
“I’d tell you before I’d tell anybody else––if it ever became serious.”
“If what became serious?”
“Well––anything of that sort,” he replied. But a bright colour stained his features and made him wince under her intent scrutiny.
She was worried, now, though her pretty, humorous smile still challenged him with its raillery.
But it was becoming very evident to her that if this boy of hers were growing sentimental over any woman the woman was not Elorn Sharrow.