Page 139

But, during the days that followed the funeral, she was increasingly
anxious about Wallace. She knew that rumors of the engagement had
reached him, for he was restless and irritable. He did not care to go
out, but wandered about the house or until late at night sat smoking
alone on the terrace, looking down at the town with sunken, unhappy
eyes. Once or twice in the evening he had taken his car and started out,
and lying awake in her French bed she would hear him coming hours later.
In the mornings his eyes were suffused and his color bad, and she knew
that he was drinking in order to get to sleep.
On the third day after Dick's departure for the West she got up when
she heard him coming in, and putting on her dressing gown and slippers,
knocked at his door.
"Come in," he called ungraciously.
She found him with his coat off, standing half defiantly with a glass of
whisky and soda in his hand. She went up to him and took it from him.
"We've had enough of that in the family, Wallie," she said. "And it's a
pretty poor resource in time of trouble."
"I'll have that back, if you don't mind."
"Nonsense," she said briskly, and flung it, glass and all, out of the
window. She was rather impressive when she turned.
"I've been a fairly indulgent mother," she said. "I've let you alone,
because it's a Sayre trait to run away when they feel a pull on the bit.
But there's a limit to my patience, and it is reached when my son drinks
to forget a girl."
He flushed and glowered at her in somber silence, but she moved about
the room calmly, giving it a housekeeper's critical inspection, and
apparently unconscious of his anger.
"I don't believe you ever cared for any one in all your life," he said
roughly. "If you had, you would know."
She was straightening a picture over the mantel, and she completed her
work before she turned.
"I care for you."
"That's different."
"Very well, then. I cared for your father. I cared terribly. And he
killed my love."
She padded out of the room, her heavy square body in its blazing kimono
a trifle rigid, but her face still and calm. He remained staring at
the door when she had closed it, and for some time after. He knew what
message for him had lain behind that emotionless speech of hers, not
only understanding, but a warning. She had cared terribly, and his
father had killed that love. He had drunk and played through his gay
young life, and then he had died, and no one had greatly mourned him.