“Where are you going this morning?”
“To Jocelyn’s.”
Mrs. Mulbridge now looked up, and met her son’s eye. “What makes you think she’ll have you?”
He did not shrink at her coming straight to the point the moment the way was clear. He had intended it, and he liked it. But he frowned a little as he said, “Because I want her to have me, for one thing.” His jaw closed heavily, but his face lost a certain brutal look almost as quickly as it had assumed it. “I guess,” he said, with a smile, “that it’s the only reason I’ve got.”
“You no need to say that,” said his mother, resenting the implication that any woman would not have him.
“Oh, I’m not pretty to look at, mother, and I’m not particularly young; and for a while I thought there might be some one, else.”
“Who?”
“The young fellow that came with her, that day.”
“That whipper-snapper?”
Dr. Mulbridge assented by his silence. “But I guess I was mistaken. I guess he’s tried and missed it. The field is clear, for all I can see. And she’s made a failure in one way, and then you know a woman is in the humor to try it in another. She wants a good excuse for giving up. That’s what I think.”