I shall
claim the reward and I shall stand the punishment, and that is the
end of it. Teaching young men to blame their parents because they
are prodigals is nonsense, and injurious nonsense. I hope you do
not imagine," she said, with a stroke of characteristic coarseness,
"that you get any of your faults from me."
"I have never held you responsible, grandmother."
Mrs. Conyers could wait no longer.
"Isabel," she asked sharply, "why did you not see Rowan when he
called a few minutes ago?"
"Grandmother, you know that I do not answer such questions."
How often in years gone by such had been Isabel's answer! The
grandmother awaited it now. To her surprise Isabel after some
moments of hesitation replied without resentment:
"I did not wish to see him."
There was a momentary pause; then this unexpected weakness was met
with a blow.
"You were eager enough to see him last night."
"I can only hope," murmured Isabel aloud though wholly to herself,
"that I did not make this plain to him."
"But what has happened since?"
Nothing was said for a while. The two women had been unable to see
each other clearly. A moment later Isabel crossed the room quickly
and taking the chair in front of her grandmother, searched that
treacherous face imploringly for something better in it than she
had ever seen there. Could she trust the untrustworthy? Would
falseness itself for once be true?
"Grandmother," she said, and her voice betrayed how she shrank from
her own words, "before you sent for me I was about to come down.
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