The Son Of Royal Langbrith. William Dean Howells
come now, when Mrs. Burwell is going to give up her house, and you will have to go somewhere else, anyhow. It hasn’t made talk your living there with her all these years, and why should your living here do it? Sit down now, and let me tell you—”
She had put her hand unconsciously on his arm and was nervously pinching the sleeve. He took her hand away and held it in his own. “ I never think of Mrs. Burwell, nor she of me; but we two would always be thinking of each other. It wouldn’t do, my dear, and you know it.”
She broke out piteously, “ I am so afraid of James!”
“Yes, I understand that, and I should be afraid of him, too, if I came here to live with you, unless I came as your husband. In that case, I shouldn’t be afraid of him.”
“Ah, you hate him! I can see it by the way you say that. What shall I do?”
“ Nothing, Amelia, except be reasonable. I don’t hate your son; how could I? Of course, your fear of him stands in our way, but I am not at all sure that he does. He might have done so, a few years ago, but there is less probability that he would now.”
“How do you mean?”
“ He is more rational. He is of a nature that matures late; he is like you, in that, Amelia. That friend of his, that young man, told me how slowly James has won upon the liking and understanding of his college mates. They did not like him at first, but now, in his last year, they are beginning to value him, to make allowances for what repelled them, to see how he has changed, and to have an affection for him.” In his gloss of Falk’s laconic terms, Anther did not feel that he was misinterpreting his statement of Langbrith’s Harvard standing; his mother eagerly accepted the version, and imagined it insufficient. “I say this,” the doctor went on, “merely to illustrate my meaning. He is now at the age when the mind acts with an insight unknown to it before, and besides—” Anther broke off, and then asked, after a moment: “What reason have you for thinking that he is seriously taken with Hope? How is it different with them from what it has always been?”
“ I don’t know. Perhaps it is his being away, and then coming back and finding her changed into a new person. Girls change so suddenly at her age. If he had stayed at home, they might have gone on being boy and girl together always. But as it is— Perhaps it is partly the way I have seen him look at her—-with a kind of surprise. And this morning, he spoke of her with so much— Oh, if it only could be, what a load it would take off my heart!”
“It would take the main obstacle out of our path, too,” Anther responded. “He would judge you somewhat more from himself.”
Mrs. Langbrith colored faintly, with a kind of shame, which he saw and resented.
“You think it isn’t the same thing!”
“No,” she owned. “How could I? It is as right for us, though it is different, as it is for them. But—”
She stopped, and even after he had said, “Well?” she did not go on immediately.
Then she shook her head, and added,“ It wouldn’t get over the great obstacle. There would still be —Mr. Langbrith.”
“Then,” said Anther, harshly, “we must remove that obstacle, that incubus, ourselves. That man’s memory mustn’t be allowed to be a lifelong nightmare to you. You suffered enough from him when he was alive. We must tell James about him.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Then you must let me.”
She slowly turned her head away. “It’s too late,” she sighed.
“No. Now is just the time. Before this, it would have been too soon. While he was a child, you could not have told him; I understand that; and you had to let him grow up in the superstition of such a father as he imagines. But now he is old enough and strong enough to have his fetish taken from him. You owe it to him to take it. Put me out of the question entirely. I will never speak to you again of what I wish—”
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