"Oh, Dicky—really?"
"Really, Eve."
Their hands came together in a warm clasp.
She let him go after that. There had been nothing more than brotherly warmth in his manner, but it was enough that in the days to come she was to have him near her.
Richard, writing to his mother, told her something of his state of mind. "I'll admit that it tempts me. It is a big thing, a very big thing, to work with a man like that. Yet knowing how you feel about it, I dare not decide. We shall have to face one thing, however. The Crossroads practice will never be a money-making practice. I know how little money means to you, but the lack of it will mean that I shall be tied to rather small things as the years go on. I should like to be one of the Big Men, mother. You see I am being very frank. I'll admit that I dreamed with you—of bringing all my talents to the uplift of a small community, of reviving at Crossroads the dignity of other days. But—perhaps we have dreamed too much—the world doesn't wait for the dreamers—the only way is to join the procession."
In the day which intervened between his letter and his mother's answer, he had breakfast with Eve in the room with the flame-colored fishes and the parrot and the green-eyed cat. He motored with Eve out to Westchester, and they had lunch at an inn on the side of a hill which overlooked the Hudson; later they went to a matinée, to tea in a special little corner of a down-town hotel for the sake of old days, then back again to dress for dinner at Eve's, with Aunt Maude at the head of the table, and Tony and Winifred and Pip completing the party. Then another play, another supper, another ride home with Eve, and in the morning in quiet contrast to all this, his mother's letter.
"Dear Boy," she said, "I am glad you spoke to me frankly of what you feel. I want no secrets between us, no reservations, no sacrifices which in the end may mean a barrier between us.
"Our sojourn at Crossroads has been an experiment. And it has failed. I had hoped that as the days went on, you might find happiness. Indeed, I had been deceiving myself with the thought that you were happy. But now I know that you are not, and I know, too, what it must mean to you to feel that from among all the others you have been chosen to help a great man like Dr. Austin, who was the friend of my father, and my friend through everything.
"But Richard, I can't go back. I literally crawled to Crossroads, after my years in New York, as a wounded animal seeks its lair. And I have a morbid shrinking from it all, unworthy of me, perhaps, but none the less impossible to overcome. I feel that the very stones of the streets would speak of the tragedy and dishonor of the past: houses would stare at me, the crowds would shun me.
"And now I have this to propose. That I stay here at Crossroads, keeping the old house open for you. David is near me, and any one of Cousin Mary Tyson's daughters would be glad to come to me. And you shall run down at week-ends, and tell me all about it, and I shall live in your letters and in the things which you have to tell. We can be one in spirit, even though there are miles between us. This is the only solution which seems possible to me at this moment. I cannot hold you back from what may be your destiny. I can only pray here in my old home for the happiness and success that must come to you—my boy—my little—boy——"
