"Look out, mother! Don't you say anything against Cynthia! She's been the
best girl to you in the world, and you know it. She's been as true to you
as Jackson has himself. She hasn't got a selfish bone in her body, and
she's so honest she couldn't design anything against you or any one,
unless she told you first. Now you take that back! Take it back! She's no
more designing than--than you are!"
Mrs. Durgin was not moved by his storming, but she was inwardly convinced
of error. "I do take it back. Cynthy is all right. She's all you say and
more. It's your fault, then, and you've got yourself to thank, for
whosever fault it is, she'll pack--"
"If Cynthy packs, I pack!" said Jeff. "Understand that. The moment she
leaves this house I leave it, too, and I'll marry her anyway. Frank 'd
leave and--and--Pshaw! What do you care for that? But I don't know what
you mean! I always thought you liked Cynthy and respected her. I didn't
believe I could tell you a thing that would please you better than that
she had said she would have me. But if it don't, all right."
Mrs. Durgin held her peace in bewilderment; she stared at her son with
dazed eyes, under the spectacles lifted above her forehead. She felt a
change of mood in his unchanged tone of defiance, and she met him
half-way. "I tell you I take back what I called Cynthia, and I told you
so. But--but I didn't ever expect you to marry her."
"Why didn't you? There isn't one of the summer folks to compare with her.
She's got more sense than all of 'em. I've known her ever since I can
remember. Why didn't you expect it?"
"I didn't expect it."
"Oh, I know! You thought I'd see somebody in Boston--some swell girl.
Well, they wouldn't any of them look at me, and if they would, they
wouldn't look at you."
"I shouldn't care whether they looked at me or not."
"I tell you they wouldn't look at me. You don't understand about these
things, and I do. They marry their own kind, and I'm not their kind, and
I shouldn't be if I was Daniel Webster himself. Daniel Webster! Who
remembers him, or cares for him, or ever did? You don't believe it? You
think that because I've been at Harvard--Oh, can't I make you see it? I'm
what they call a jay in Harvard, and Harvard don't count if you're a
jay."
His mother looked at him without speaking. She would not confess the
ambition he taxed her with, and perhaps she had nothing so definite in
her mind. Perhaps it was only her pride in him, and her faith in a
splendid future for him, that made her averse to his marriage in the lot
she had always known, and on a little lower level in it that her own. She
said at last:
"I don't know what you mean by being a jay. But I guess we better not say
anything more about this to-night."
"All right," Jeff returned. There never were any formal good-nights
between the Durgins, and he went away now without further words.
His mother remained sitting where he left her. Two or three times she
drew her empty darning-needle through the heel of the stocking she was
mending.
She was still sitting there when Jackson passed on his way to bed, after
leaving the office in charge of the night porter. He faltered, as he went
by, and as he stood on the threshold she told him what Jeff had told her.
"That's good," he said, lifelessly. "Good for Jeff," he added,
thoughtfully, conscientiously.
"Why a'n't it good for her, too?" demanded Jeff's mother, in quick
resentment of the slight put upon him.
"I didn't say it wa'n't," said Jackson. "But it's better for Jeff."
"She may be very glad to get him!"
"I presume she is. She's always cared for him, I guess. She'll know how
to manage him."
"I don't know," said Mrs. Durgin, "as I like to have you talk so, about
Jeff. He was here, just now, wantin' to give up his last year in Harvard,
so 's to let you go off on a vacation. He thinks you've worked yourself
down."
Jackson made no recognition of Jeff's professed self-sacrifice. "I don't
want any vacation. I'm feeling first-rate now. I guess that stuff I had
from the writin' medium has begun to take hold of me. I don't know when
I've felt so well. I believe I'm going to get stronger than ever I was.
Jeff say I needed a rest?"
Something like a smile of compassion for the delusion of his brother
dawned upon the sick man's wasted face, which was blotched with large
freckles, and stared with dim, large eyes from out a framework of grayish
hair, and grayish beard cut to the edges of the cheeks and chin.