Marriage could have added nothing to her
lofty conceptions of motherhood--but I--I have been keenly resentful
and sensitive--for her. I think it has been the feeling that no one
understood. Then, after she died, there was no one--only Philip. I
saw him rarely."
"And your cousin?"
"She had been taught--to misunderstand. There was always that barrier.
And she is very high spirited. Though we were much together as
youngsters she could not forget."
A singular maternal history, a beautiful, high-spirited, intolerant
cousin who had been taught to despise his mother's morality! What
warring forces indeed had gone to the making of this man before him.
"You have been lonely?"
"Yes," said Carl. "My mother died when I needed her most. Later when
I was very lonely--or hurt--I drank."
"And brooded!" finished Mic-co quietly.
"Yes," said Carl. "Always." He spoke a little bitterly of the wild
inheritance of passions and arrogant intolerance with which Nature had
saddled him.
"All of which," reminded Mic-co soberly, "you inflamed by intemperate
drinking. Is it an inherited appetite?"
"It is not an appetite at all," said Carl.
"You like it?"
"If you mean that to abandon it is to suffer--no. I enjoyed it---yes."
The wind that blew through the open windows and doors of the lodge
stirred the moonlit water lilies in the pool.
Pages:
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292