第38章

"Oh, you can't be sure of that. You must n't believe too much in doctors, mother. Mrs. Maynard is pretty tough. And she's had wonderfully good nursing. You've only heard the Barlow side of the matter," said her sun, betraying now for the first time that he had been aware of any knowledge of it on her part. That was their way: though they seldom told each other anything, and went on as if they knew nothing of each other's affairs, yet when they recognized this knowledge it was without surprise on either side. "I could tell you a different story.

She's a very fine girl, mother; cool and careful under instruction, and perfectly tractable and intelligent. She's as different from those other women you've seen as you are. You would like her!" He had suddenly grown earnest, and crushing the crust of a biscuit in the strong left hand which he rested on the table, he gazed keenly at her undemonstrative face. "She's no baby, either. She's got a will and a temper of her own.

She's the only one of them I ever saw that was worth her salt."

"I thought you did n't like self-willed women," said his mother impassively.

"She knows when to give up," he answered, with unrelaxed scrutiny.

His mother did not lift her eyes, yet. "How long shall you have to visit over there?"

"I've made my last professional visit."

"Where are you going this morning?"

"To Jocelyn's."

Mrs. Mulbridge now looked up, and met her son's eye. "What makes you think she'll have you?"

He did not shrink at her coming straight to the point the moment the way was clear. He had intended it, and he liked it. . But he frowned a little as he said, "Because I want her to have me, for one thing." His jaw closed heavily, but his face lost a certain brutal look almost as quickly as it had assumed it. "I guess," he said, with a smile, "that it's the only reason I've got."

"You no need to say that," said his mother, resenting the implication that any woman would not have him.

"Oh, I'm not pretty to look at, mother, and I'm not particularly young; and for a while I thought there might be some one, else."

"Who?"

"The young fellow that came with her, that day."

"That whipper-snapper?"

Dr. Mulbridge assented by his silence. "But I guess I was mistaken. I guess he's tried and missed it. The field is 'clear, for all I can see.

And she's made a failure in one way, and then you know a woman is in the humor to try it in another. She wants a good excuse for giving up.

That's what I think."

"Well," said his mother, "I presume you know what you're about, Rufus!"

She took up the coffee-pot on the lid of which she had been keeping her hand, and went into the kitchen with it. She removed the dishes, and left him sitting before the empty table-cloth. When she came for that, he took hold of her hand, and looked up into her face, over which a scarcely discernible tremor passed. "Well, mother?"

"It's what I always knew I had got to come to, first or last. And I suppose I ought to feel glad enough I did n't have to come to it at first."

"No!" said her son. "I'm not a stripling any longer." He laughed, keeping his mother's hand.

She freed it and taking up the table-cloth folded it lengthwise and then across, and laid it neatly away in the cupboard. "I sha'n't interfere with you, nor any woman that you bring here to be your wife. I've had my day, and I'm not one of the old fools that think they're going to have and to hold forever. You've always been a good boy to me, and I guess you hain't ever had to complain' of your mother stan'in' in your way. I sha'n't now. But I did think" She stopped and shut her lips firmly. "Speak up, mother!" he cried.

"I guess I better not," she answered, setting her chair back against the wall.

"I know what you mean. You mean about my laughing at women that try to take men's places in the world. Well, I did laugh at them. They're ridiculous. I don't want to marry this girl because she's a doctor.

That was the principal drawback, in my mind. But it does n't make any difference, and wouldn't now, if she was a dozen doctors."

His mother let down the leaves of the table, and pushed it against the wall, and he rose from the chair in which he was left sitting in the middle of the room. "I presume," she said, with her back toward him, as she straightened the table accurately against the mopboard, "that you can let me have the little house at Grant's Corner."