“Oh, Dick, what was happened to your father?” she asked, turning to her boy for comfort. But Dick was unusually sulky, and refused to answer.
“You had better ask him, mother, if you are anxious to know,” he replied, in a voice he very seldom used to her. “As for me, I am so sick of the whole thing, and feel myself so badly used, that I would rather not open my lips on the subject.”
Then Mrs. Mayne sighed, for she knew Dick had one of his obstinate fits on him, and that there would be no further word spoken by him that night.
Poor woman! She knew it was her duty to go into the library and speak a word of comfort to her husband. It might be that Dick had been contumacious, and had angered his father, and it might be her task to pour in the balm of sympathy. Even if he had been hard on her boy, she must not forget that he was her husband.
But as she opened the door she forgot her doubts in a moment. Mr. Mayne’s face was so pale, despite its blackness, that she was moved to instant pity.
“Oh, Richard, what is it?” she said, hurrying to him, “My dear, you must not take it to heart in this way.” And she took his forehead between her hands and kissed it with the old tenderness she had once felt for him, when they, too, had lived and worked for each other, and there was no Master Dick to plague them and rule over his mother’s heart.
“Bessie, that boy will be the death of me,” he groaned. 321 But, notwithstanding the despondency of these words, the comfort of his wife’s presence was visibly felt, and by and by he suffered her to coax the truth from him.