“Lord! what a relief! I breathe again.”
Jim fired off his secret without further delay. “I've been married, though.”
“Married? Already? Married to what? Anybody I ever heard of?”
His mother was gasping in a dangerous approach to heart failure. Jim protested.
“You never saw her, but she's a very nice girl. You'll love her when you meet her.”
Jim's father sputtered as he pulled himself out of his chair: “Wha-what's this? You—you damned young cub! You—why—what—who—oh, you jackass! You big, lumbering, brainless, heartless bonehead! Oh—whew! Look at your poor mother!”
Jim was frightened. She was pounding at her huge breast with one hand and clutching her big throat with another. Her husband whirled to a siphon, filled a glass with vichy, and gave it to Jim to hold to her lips while he ran to throw open a window.
Jim knelt by his mother and felt like Cain bringing home the news of the first crime. Her son's remorse was the first thing that Eve felt, no doubt; at least, it was the first that Mrs. Dyckman understood when the paroxysm left her. She felt so sorry for her lad that she could not blame him. She blamed the woman, of course. She cried awhile before she spoke; then she caressed Jim's cheeks and blubbered:
“But we mustn't make too much of a fuss about a little thing like a wedding. It's his first offense of the kind. I suppose he fell into the trap of some little devil with a pretty face. Poor innocent child, with no mother to protect him!”
“Poor innocent scoundrel!” old Dyckman snarled. “He probably got her into trouble, and she played on his sympathy.”