“I was thinking of your mother,” he said at last.
“Oh!” replied Mornice, who was hoping for a more spirited confidence.
“You know,” he went on, “when I see you, I sometimes wish I had been a little more tolerant. It is a wonderful possession—a child of one’s own.”
“You might not have liked me so well,” said Mornice gaily. Her face took more serious lines. “I was only fourteen when she cleared out and left me on my own—but it wouldn’t have been any good—I can see that. She wasn’t a bit nice, I’m afraid.”
There was a quality of frankness about Mornice. She invariably spoke her mind. A bad mother was none the better for being her own. Mrs. Harrington May, late Mrs. Eliphalet Cardomay, née Blanche Cannon, was not a lady to inspire affection in other than masculine hearts, and even there not a quality to endure.
“Then you do not miss your mother?”
“Not a bit.”
“No,” said Eliphalet thoughtfully; “and no more do I. Well, well; I have arranged with the syndicate—yes, I had to climb down about playing ‘Hamlet,’ and now we are going to put up ‘The Night Cry,’ after all. The cast is engaged and we start rehearsing here this week.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” said Mornice. Then with a shade of nervousness, “And who have you got to do my part?”
“Yourself, of course.”