Somehow the character Lady Braithwaite gave the stage made more impression on Mrs. Winfield than all of Roger’s history.
On the long, late ride back to their hotel the old couple were meek, quite whipped-out. They had come to redeem an actress from perdition or bribe her not to drag their son to her own level; they returned with their ears full of stage glories and a bewildered feeling that an alliance with the Kemble family would be the making of them.
As the train bore them homeward, however, their old prejudices resumed sway. They began to feel resentful. If Sheila had been more lowly, suppliant, and helpless they might have stooped to her. But a daughter-in-law who could earn over fifty thousand dollars a year was a dangerous thing about the house. Sheila’s scenario had worked just a little too well.
Young Winfield met his parents at the train and searched their faces eagerly. They looked guilty and almost pouting. They said nothing till they were in their own car—it looked shabby after the Kemble turnout. Then Bret pleaded:
“Well, what do you think of Sheila?”
“She’s very nice,” said his mother, stingily.
“Is that all? She wrote me that you were wonderful. She said my father was one of the most distinguished-looking men she ever saw, and as for my mother, she was simply beautiful, so fashionable and aristocratic—an angel, she called you, mother.”
One may see through these things, but they can’t be resisted. As Roger Kemble used to put it: “Say what you will, a bouquet beats a brickbat for comfort no matter what direction it comes from.”
The Winfields blushed with pride and warmed over their comments on Sheila. In fact, they went so far as to say that she would never give up the fame and fortune and admiration that were waiting for her, just to marry a common manufacturer’s son.
This threw the fear of love into Bret and made him more than ever frantic to see Sheila and be reassured or put out of his misery. There was no restraining him. His father protested that he was needed at home. But it was mating-season with the young man, and parents were only in his way, as their parents had been in theirs.