"Mrs. Haddon told us so," said Phyllis. "She talked about your mother, and your sister, and of the influence which they had had upon your life--your career."
"They are both dead," said he.
"They did not live to see your triumph; that is what your tone suggests," said she. "That is what Mrs. Haddon said--the tears were in her eyes--last night, Mr. Courtland. I wish you could have heard her.
I wish you could have heard what she said when someone made a commonplace remark as to how sad it was they were dead."
"What did she say, Miss Ayrton?"
"She said, 'No, no; please do not talk about death overtaking such as they. The mother, who transmits her nature to the son, renews her life in him; it is not he, but his mother, who lives.' And then she asked, 'Do you suppose that Herbert Courtland ever sets out on any of his great enterprises without thinking of his mother and sister, without feeling that he must do something worthy of them, something for their sake? And you talk of them as if they were dead--as if they had passed away forever from the concerns of earth!' That is what she said, Mr. Courtland."
He had bent forward on his low seat, and was leaning his head on one of his hands. He had his eyes fixed on the parquet of the floor. He was motionless. He did not speak a word.
"Mrs. Haddon said something more," Phyllis continued, after a pause.
Her voice had fallen still another tone. " 'Yes,' she said, as if musing, 'dead--dead! A man is as his mother has made him. He is with her from the moment she loves his father. She is evermore thinking of him; he is precious to her before the mystery of his birth is revealed to her. He grows up by her side, and loves her because he knows that she understands him. She does understand him, and she understands his father better by understanding her son.' She said that, Mr. Courtland, and I felt that she had spoken one of the greatest truths of this mysterious life of ours. Then she said, 'Herbert Courtland is a man who has lived with honor to himself, with honor to the memory of his mother, and of his sister, whom he loved. He is a man, and he has not merely attained distinction in the world; if he is without fear, he is also without reproach; and ask him if he has not been strengthened in his fight with whatever of base may have risen up within him, being a man, from day to day, by the thought that his sister is one with him; that his purity of heart and of act is the purity of his mother and his sister, upon which no stain must ever come.' That was all she said, Mr. Courtland."
There was a long pause after she had spoken. He sat there with his head bent, his fingers interlaced. He had his eyes fixed upon the floor. His cup of tea stood untasted beside him on a little Algerian table.
And she--as she looked at him her soft eyes became dim with tears. She knew that the words which she had spoken, the words which she had repeated as they were spoken by the lady whom she had met the previous night, had awakened many memories within him. She too had her memories. She knew that there was a certain gratefulness in the midst of the bitterness of such memories.
That was all she knew.
And the tears continued to well up to her eyes until she was aware that he had risen from his seat and was standing in front of her. She drew her hand across her eyes. She saw a movement in his lips. They were trembling, but no sound came from them. The hand that he stretched out to her was trembling also. She put her own into it. He held her hand tightly for a moment, then dropped it suddenly and almost fled from the room, without uttering a word.
