The spring had broken through its first slender greenish film into the freshness of its young beauty. The sense of faint, far voices endlessly calling was in the air. Again the windows of the little flat were opened and again the afternoon sun warmed to golden green the new growth of leaves on the horse-chestnut in the rectangular enclosure outside.
Haldane had never felt so splendidly the birth of new things—in himself and in the world. All the morning he had been constantly picking up his violin, playing what he called his “Spring-feelings”—unrhythmic wild snatches of melody.
“God! it’s good, good, good,” he cried, throwing back his head. “Good to have lived out of it all into this.”
“Mother,” he called presently, “what on earth are you doing there all alone? Come out and play with me. You’ve looked over those old books and papers, spring-cleaned your old closets, too long. If you don’t come out at once, I’ll come and drag you out bodily—I will indeed.”
He ran to her door in another moment, and flinging it open wide, he called: “If you will insist on being led forth—Why, mother, what is it? what’s the matter? What is it? Are you ill? Why—”
She sat on a low stool drawn up close to her bed. Her hands were clasped straight out before her over a little book bound in faded imitation red leather—a little book Haldane, on the instant, with curious alertness, knew as one of Ida’s old school note-books. On her face was a look so bewildered, so grieved, so terror-stricken almost, that Haldane suddenly ceased to speak. She raised her eyes to him with the pleading of a hurt animal. For a time neither uttered a word. And then, all at once, it seemed to Haldane as if he knew. His gaze fell hesitatingly. When, at last, he spoke, it was in a very gentle voice.
“Mother—is it anything we can talk out together—now?”
She shook her head dumbly, the tears gathering in her eyes. “Oh, Lennie!” she whispered, finally, as if he were a little boy. “It isn’t true, is it?”
Haldane did not reply. She reached out the little red book to him slowly. “You’d—you’d better read it. I—found it—this afternoon.”
He took the book, without wonder, and went back, softly closing the door on her. Unconsciously he sat down before the little, cheap, oak desk—Ida’s desk—and began to read. It was, perhaps, two hours afterward when he had finished. The room was dark and very still.