Tilly edged herself around till her eyes met his again. "Yes, I knew your mother was living, John," she went on, "and I'm going to confess something. I'm going to confess that I've been worrying more since you got back from your home than I did before. John, I thought if you really intended to ask me to marry you, that you would tell your mother about it, and that you would naturally tell me what she said—that is, if she was willing for you to marry me. But as you have never mentioned her since you got back, I thought—well, I thought she might have other plans for you and that you didn't want to hurt my feelings by telling me what she said."
John stared helplessly for an instant; then he shrugged his great shoulders. "She has got nothing to do with me or what I do," he blurted out. "She goes her way and I go mine."
"But surely," Tilly said, groping for his meaning, "she knows about me—you have told her—"
"No," John broke in, in a mood like that of his old impatience over work that was badly done by his assistants, "I haven't told her, and what is more, I shall not tell her. It is no business of hers. I did tell her that from now on I'd not supply her with as much money as I have been doing, but I didn't tell her why. She throws money away—she burns it in solid wads. She is—is foolish. She is not like your mother or any of these plain, sensible folks up here. She is on the go all the time, to parties, dances, and what not."
"I see," Tilly said, in a mystified tone. "Then she must be young. How old is she, John?"
"I don't know; I haven't the least idea," was John's prompt reply. "Let me think. Seems to me I heard Jane Holder say she was very young when I was born. That would put her at, well, near forty. But what does that matter? I don't care anything about her or her age."
"John, you speak so strangely," Tilly intoned, reproachfully. "You pretend that you don't love her. Why, I'll love her always and with all my heart if for nothing else than that she is your mother."
"Rubbish!" John sniffed. "You won't love her; you won't even like her. I tell you she is—is different from what you think. She is—is giddy, silly, complaining, quarrelsome—up all hours of the night and asleep all day or moping about with bloated eyes."
"I see. She is fond of society," Tilly returned, with a little self-deprecating sigh. "Ridgeville is a rather big town and there must be plenty of women like her there. I won't blame her for that. I shall love her, and I shall make her love me, too, if I possibly can. She will be old some day and she will need us both."
For some reason inexplicable to him, John was impatient with the trend of the talk. He was vaguely angry, and yet was trying to curb the impulse. For the first time he was finding Tilly unreasonable. Since the very inception of the plan to marry Tilly and reside in the little cottage he had pictured himself and her as being completely cut off from his old life. Since his visit to his home the sheer thought of the sordid old house and its inmates had jarred on him to the point of repulsiveness. He had learned to like the orderly simplicity of the circle in which Tilly had her being, and to wish that his might have been like unto it.