Mrs. Peyton had been sitting alone with these thoughts for the greater part of the afternoon, and dusk was falling when Dick entered the drawing-room. In the dim light, with his pallour heightened by the sombre effect of his mourning, he came upon her almost startlingly, with a revival of some long-effaced impression which, for a moment, gave her the sense of struggling among shadows. She did not, at first, know what had produced the effect; then she saw that it was his likeness to his father.
“Well--is it over?” she asked, as he threw himself into a chair without speaking.
“Yes: I’ve looked through everything.” He leaned back, crossing his hands behind his head, and gazing past her with a look of utter lassitude.
She paused a moment, and then said tentatively: “to-morrow you will be able to go back to your work.”
“Oh--my work,” he exclaimed, as if to brush aside an ill-timed pleasantry.
“No.” He rose and began to wander up and down the room. “I’m not tired.--Give me some tea, will you?” He paused before her while she poured the cup, and then, without taking it, turned away to light a cigarette.
“Surely there is still time?” she suggested, with her eyes on him.
“Time? To finish my plans? Oh, yes--there’s time. But they’re not worth it.”
“Not worth it?” She started up, and then dropped back into her seat, ashamed of having betrayed her anxiety. “They are worth as much as they were last week,” she said with an attempt at cheerfulness.
“Not to me,” he returned. “I hadn’t seen Darrow’s then.”
There was a long silence. Mrs. Peyton sat with her eyes fixed on her clasped hands, and her son paced the room restlessly.
“Are they so wonderful?” she asked at length.
She paused again, and then said, lifting a tremulous glance to his face: “That makes his offer all the more beautiful.”
Dick was lighting another cigarette, and his face was turned from her. “Yes--I suppose so,” he said in a low tone.
“They were quite finished, he told me,” she continued, unconsciously dropping her voice to the pitch of his.
“Of course--why not?” he answered almost sharply.
“Shall you have time to attend to all that and to finish yours too?”
“Oh, I suppose so. I’ve told you it isn’t a question of time. I see now that mine are not worth bothering with.”