It was a pity the elder woman could not have read that letter, for had she been able to, it would not only have astonished but also have enlightened her and perhaps quieted the beating of her troubled heart.
It was a letter that astonished Sylvia herself. Nevertheless, much as it surprised her, her amazement in no way approached that of young Horatio Fuller when he read it.
So completely did it scatter to the winds of heaven every other thought his youthful head contained that he posted two important business documents—one without a stamp, and the other without an address. After that he decided he was unfit to cope with commercial duties and pleading a headache hastened home to his mother.
Now Horatio's mother, far from possessing the appearance of a tower of strength to which one might flee in time of trouble, was a woman of colorless, vaguely defined personality indicative of little guile and still less determination. She listened well and gave the impression she could listen, with her hands passively folded in her lap, forever if necessary. She never interrupted; never offered comment or advice; never promised anything; and yet when she said, as she invariably did, "I'll talk with your father, dear," there was always infinite comfort in the observation.
That was what she said today to Horatio Junior.
Accordingly that evening after Horatio Senior had dined, and dined well; after he had smoked a good cigar and with no small measure of pride in his own skill put into place all the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle that had defied his prowess the night before—his wife artfully slipping them beneath his nose where he could not fail to find them—then and not until then did Mrs. Horatio take out the pink afghan she had been making and while she knit two and purled two, she gently imparted to Alton City's leading citizen the intelligence that his son, Horatio Junior, wished to go East; that he was in love; that, in short, he wished to marry.
Up into the air like a whizzing rocket soared Horatio Senior!
He raged; he tramped the floor; he heaped on the head of the absent Horatio Junior every epithet of reproach his wrath could devise, the phrases driveling idiot and audacious puppy appearing to afford him the greatest measure of relief. Continuing his harangue, he threatened to disinherit his son; he smoked four cigarettes in succession; he tipped over the Boston fern. The rest of the things Horatio Senior said and what he did would not only be too gross to write down in the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, but also would be improper to record here.
In the meantime, Mrs. Horatio knitted on.
At last when breathless and panting Horatio Senior, like an alarm clock ran down and sank exhausted into his chair, Mrs. Horatio began the second row of knit two, purl two and ventured the irrefutable observation that after all Horatio Junior was their only child.