“I wish I’d never had a son!” cried Mrs. Bassett. “How much luckier you are than I!”
Miss Ley got up, and a curious expression came over her face.
“Oh, my dear, don’t say that! I tell you, that even though I know Reggie to be idle and selfish and dissolute, I would give all I have in the world if he were only mine. There’s not a soul on this wide earth that cares for me—except Frank, because I amuse him—and I’m so dreadfully lonely. I’m growing old. Often I feel so old I wonder how I can continue to live, and I want someone so badly to whom it’s not a matter of absolute indifference if I’m well or ill, dead or alive. Oh, my dear, thank God for your son!”
“I can’t now I know he’s wicked and vicious.”
“But what is vice, and what is wickedness? Are you sure we know? I suppose I have been a virtuous woman. I’ve done nobody any harm; I’ve helped a good many; I’ve done the usual moral things that women do; and when anything was possible that I particularly wanted, I’ve withstood because it was ingrained in me that nice things were naughty. But sometimes I think I’ve wasted my life, and I dare say I should be a better woman if I hadn’t been so virtuous. When I look back now it’s not the temptations I fell to that I regret, but the temptations I resisted. I’m an old woman, and I’ve never known love, and I’m childless and forsaken. Oh, Emily, if I had my time over again I promise you I wouldn’t be so virtuous. I would take all the good that life offered, without thinking too much of propriety. And above all things I would have a child.”
“Mary, what are you saying?”
Miss Ley shrugged her shoulders, and was silent; her voice was broken, and she could not trust herself to speak. But Mrs. Bassett’s thoughts went back to the injury which Reggie had done her, and she gave Miss Ley his letter to read.
“There’s not a word of regret in it. He seems to have no shame and no conscience. He was married on the very day of my operation, when I might have died any moment. He must be absolutely heartless.”
“D’you know what I would do if I were you?” asked Miss Ley, pleased to get away from her own emotions. “I would go to him, and ask forgiveness for all the harm you’ve done him.”
“I? Mary, you must be mad! What need have I for forgiveness?”