Before, noticing her change of manner, her restless questions, he had
been vaguely alarmed, and as they went on the alarm had become
more pronounced; but at this moment, when there shone forth the
mother-instinct which had never come out or blossomed in her life, but
had been overlaid completely with routine and conventionality, rendering
it too indolent to put forth petals, Michael had no thought but for that
which she had never given him yet, and which, now it began to expand
before him, he knew he had missed all his life.
She took up his big hand that lay on his knee and began timidly stroking
it.
"Since you have been away," she said, "and since your father has been
vexed with you, I have begun to see how lonely you must have been. What
taught me that, I am afraid, was only that I have begun to feel lonely,
too. Nobody wants me; even Petsy, when she died, didn't want me to be
near her, and then it began to strike me that perhaps you might want me.
There was no one else, and who should want me if my son did not? I never
gave you the chance before, God forgive me, and now perhaps it is too
late. You have learned to do without me."
That was bitterly true; the truth of it stabbed Michael.
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