HE made no comment when, in the morning, his mother made tentative
piles of his clothing. He would see Eliza that afternoon, and then
announce their decision. His mother attempted to fathom his feeling
at the prospect of the journey, the separation from Ellerton; but, the
memory of his father's cutting words still rankling in his mind, he
evaded her questioning.
“If you are going to be miserable out there,” she told him, enveloping
him in the affection of her steady, grey gaze, “something else might be
found. I can always help--”
“You don't understand these things,” he interrupted her brusquely,
annoyed by his father's prescience. They were sitting in her sewing
room, a pile of his socks at her side. She wore her familiar, severe
garb, the steelbowed spectacles directed upon the needle flashing
steadily in her assured fingers. She was eternally laboring for her
children, Anthony realized with a pang of affection. His earliest
memories were charged with her unflagging care, the touch of her smooth
and tireless hands, the defense of her energetic voice.
He must tell her about his engagement, but not until he had seen Eliza
again, when something definite would be agreed upon. It was immensely
difficult for him to talk about the subject nearest his heart-words
diminished and misrepresented it: he wanted to brood over it, secretly,
for days.