"It is not intended as an insult," he said. "Perhaps if you will wait till I explain--"
"You can't explain away the fact that that is a woman," replied Mrs. Prymmer, pointing an accusing finger toward the next room.
No, he could not. With all the words that he could utter, with all the stock of logic at his command, Justin Mercer could not disprove the fact that in the room beyond them was a young and uncommonly beautiful woman.
"What do you mean by saying that she is a present for me?" asked his discomfited mother. "I have one girl now. I suppose this is some creature you have picked up on your travels."
Justin Mercer was not a man given to unseemly mirth, yet at this disdainful remark he made a sound in his throat closely approaching a laugh. "Did you look at her, mother?"
Mrs. Prymmer for a few instants forgot her vengeance in her curiosity. It was no servant, but a lady that had passed her in the doorway. The delicate face, with its clear-cut features and limpid eyes, was a refined and not a vulgar one.
"Your wife," gasped Mrs. Prymmer, and she half rose from her chair, then staggered into it again, and laid her hand against the high back for support, while all the furniture in the room, presided over by her son's sober face, whirled slowly by her in a distracted procession.
"Shall I get you a glass of water?" he asked, sympathetically.
She made a prohibitory gesture. This was only the reflex action of the blow struck when first she had seen the young girl accompanying him up the steps. She knew then that he had brought home a wife. Moistening her dry lips with her tongue so that she might compass the words, she articulated, "This is the fruit of disobedience."
Her son did not reply to her, but there was no sign of regret on his face, no word of apology on his tongue. He had found the fruit sweet, and not bitter,--he had plucked it in defiance of her well-known wishes. She had lost the little boy that she had led by the hand for years,--the young man that had lingered by her side, apparently indifferent to all feminine society but her own. She had lost him for ever, and, making a motion of her plump hands as if she were washing him and his affairs from them, she got up and moved toward the door.