She remained silent for a few moments to dry the fresh tears that were reddening her eyes and giving her voice a husky resonance.
"He came to Paris when I was least expecting him. The venerable friend who was looking after his education there in America, had died. I found a man, a grown man, in spite of the fact that he wasn't over sixteen. My first feeling was one of annoyance, almost anger. I should have to say farewell to youth, and change my mode of life on account of this intruder. But there was something in me that kept me from doing anything so heartless as to send him back to a foreign country, or off to a boarding school in Paris. I grew accustomed to him at once. I had to have him in my house. It seemed as though, when I was near him, I felt a certain serenity, a deep quiet joy that I never thought myself capable of feeling. You don't know what it means, Michael. You could never understand, no matter how much I tried to explain it to you. I swear it was the happiest time in my life. There is no love like that. Besides, we were such good comrades! I suddenly felt as though I were a girl of his age again; no, younger than he. George used to give me advice. He was so wise for a boy of his age; and I used to do what he said like a younger sister. He let his mother drag him along and introduce him to a world of pleasure and luxury that dazzled him, after his sober, athletic life with a stern educator. And I leaned proudly on his arm, and laughed at the false ideas people had of our actual relation. How we used to dance, the year before the war, without any one suspecting the true nature of the affection that bound me to my partner!"
Alicia paused to linger on these delightful memories. She smiled with a far-away look in her eyes, as she thought of the malicious error people had made.
"Every tango-tea in the Champs-Élysées found the Duchess de Delille dancing with her latest crush! And, Michael, as for me, I was proud that they should be making such a mistake. I went on being the beautiful Alicia, restored to youth by the fidelity of an adolescent who accompanied her everywhere, with all the enthusiasm of a first love. This seemed to me a much better rôle than that of the passively resigned mother. Besides, what fun we used to have laughing and talking it over afterwards when we were by ourselves! Many of my former lovers felt their old passion revive again out of a sort of unconscious envy—the instinctive rivalry that the man of ripe years feels toward youth—and they began besieging me with their gallantries again. George used to threaten me in fun: 'Mamma, I'm jealous!' He didn't want any other man to be showing attentions to his mother, so that she might belong to him completely. On other occasions I myself had better reasons to protest. I surprised a greedy look in the eyes of many women of my own class when they gazed at him—some with a boldly inviting look, since, being younger, they felt they had a right to take him away from me. And he was so good! He used to joke with me about these passions that he inspired; and tell me about others that I had not been able to guess! You don't know what young people are like nowadays, in the generation that has followed us. They seem to be made of different flesh and blood. Our generation was the last to take love seriously; to give tremendous importance to it, and make it the chief occupation of our lives. Now they don't understand people like you and me: we seem monstrous to them. My son is only interested in one woman: his mother; and in addition to her, automobiles, aeroplanes, and sports. All these strong, innocent boys seemed to have guessed what was awaiting them...."
As she spoke, the momentary serenity with which she had related this happy period in her life gradually vanished. She went on talking in a subdued voice, choked from time to time by sobs.
Suddenly war had come. Who could have imagined it a month before? And her son was ashamed not to be one of the men who were hurrying to the railroad stations to join a regiment. One morning he had overwhelmed her with the announcement of his enlistment as a volunteer. What could she do? Legally she was not his mother. George bore the name of a pair of old married servants who had been willing to play that game of deception by posing as his parents. Besides, he was born in France, and it was not extraordinary that he, like so many other youths, should have wanted to defend his country before he was called to arms by law.
The Duchess lived for a few months in a tiny village in the south of France, near the Aviation Camp where her son was in training. She wanted to be with him just as long as she possibly could. If only he had become a soldier at the time when she was living separated from him, and was concealing her actual relation to him! But she was going to lose him at the sweetest moment of her life, when she was beginning to think she might be at George's side forever.
"It did not take him long to become a pilot. How I hated the ease with which he learned to manage his machine! His progress filled me with pride and anger. Those young fellows are regular fanatics so far as aviation is concerned. It is something that has come into existence in their time, and they have seen it grow before their school-boy eyes. He went away, and since then I have been more dead than alive. Three years, Michael, three years of torture! I've paid dearly for all my past life! Though the mistakes that I made were great, I've made up for them, and more too. You may well have compassion on me. You can have no idea what I'm suffering."
The first year that Alicia had spent alone, she had lived in constant expectation of his letters, which arrived irregularly from the front. Her joys were few and far between. George had come to Paris only once on leave, and had spent half a week with her. At long intervals she also received visits from the aviator's comrades, greeting the news they brought with tears and smiles. Her son had received the War Cross after an air battle. His mother had cut out the short newspaper paragraph referring to this event, sticking it with two pins on the silk with which her bedroom was hung. She would spend hours staring as though hypnotized at these brief lines: "Bachellery, Georges, aviator, gave chase to two enemy planes beyond our lines and ..."
This "Bachellery, Georges" was her son! It made no difference to her that other people were not aware of the fact. Her pride seemed to grow because of the mystery surrounding it. The handsome strapping fellow, strong, and innocent as the heroes of ancient legend, had been formed in her body. All the men whom she had known in her past life seemed more and more petty and ugly; they were inferior beings, sprung from another race of humanity, the existence of which should be forgotten.