The Crimson Tide: A Novel

“Really, there is nothing, dear–”

“Tell me when you are ready, then,” she laughed and released him.

“But there isn’t anything,” he insisted.

“Yes, Jim, there is. Do you suppose I don’t know you after all these years?”

She considered him with clear, amused eyes: “Don’t forget,” she added, “that I was only seventeen when you arrived, my son; and I have grown up with you ever since–”

“For heaven’s sake, Helen!–” protested Sharrow Senior plaintively from the front hall below. “Can’t you gossip with Jim some other time?”

“I’m on my way, James,” she announced calmly. “Put your overcoat on.” And, to her son: “Go to the opera. Elorn will cheer you up. Isn’t that a good idea?”

“That’s–certainly–an idea… I’ll think it over… And, mother, if I seem solemn at times, please try to remember how rotten every fellow feels about being out of the service–”

Her gay, derisive laughter checked him, warning him that he was not imposing on her credulity. She said smilingly:

“You have neglected Elorn Sharrow, and you know it, and it’s on your conscience–whatever else may be on it, too. And that’s partly why you feel blue. So keep out of mischief, darling, and stop neglecting Elorn–that is, if you ever really expect to marry her–”

“I’ve told you that I have never asked her; and I never intend to ask her until I am making a decent living,” he said impatiently.

“Isn’t there an understanding between you?”

“Why–I don’t think so. There couldn’t be. We’ve never spoken of that sort of thing in our lives!”

“I think she expects you to ask her some day. Everybody else does, anyway.”

“Well, that is the one thing I won’t do,” he said, “–go about with the seat out of my pants and ask an heiress to sew on the patch for me–”

“Darling! You can be so common when you try!”

“Well, it amounts to that–doesn’t it, mother? I don’t care what busy gossips say or idle people expect me to do! There’s no engagement, no understanding between Elorn and me. And I don’t care a hang what anybody–”

His mother framed his slightly flushed face between her gloved hands and inspected him humorously.

“Very well, dear,” she said; “but you need not be so emphatically excited about it–”

“I’m not excited–but it irritates me to be expected to do anything because it’s expected of me–” He shrugged his shoulders:

“After all,” he added, “if I ever should fall in love with anybody it’s my own business. And whatever I choose to do about it will be my own affair. And I shall keep my own counsel in any event.”

His mother stepped forward, letting both her hands fall into his.

“Wouldn’t you tell me about it, Jim?”

“I’d tell you before I’d tell anybody else–if it ever became serious.”

“If what became serious?”

“Well–anything of that sort,” he replied. But a bright colour stained his features and made him wince under her intent scrutiny.

She was worried, now, though her pretty, humorous smile still challenged him with its raillery.

But it was becoming very evident to her that if this boy of hers were growing sentimental over any woman the woman was not Elorn Sharrow.

So far she had held her son’s confidence. She must do nothing to disturb it. Yet, as she looked at him with the amused smile still edging her lips, she began for the first time in her life to be afraid.

They kissed each other in silence.

In the limousine, seated beside her husband, she said presently: “I wish Jim would marry Elorn Sharrow.”

“He’s likely to some day, isn’t he?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, there’s no hurry,” remarked her husband. “He ought not to marry anybody until he’s thirty, and he’s only twenty-four. I’m glad enough to have him remain at home with us.”

“But that’s what worries me; he doesn’t!”

“Doesn’t what?”

“Doesn’t remain at home.”

Her husband laughed: “Well, I meant it merely in a figurative sense. Of course Jim goes out–”

“Where?”

“Why, everywhere, I suppose,” said her husband, a little surprised at her tone.

She said calmly: “I hear things–pick up bits of gossip–as all women do… And at a tea the other day a man asked me why Jim never goes to his clubs any more. So you see he doesn’t go to any of his clubs when he goes ‘out’ in the evenings… And he’s been to no dances–judging from what is said to me… And he doesn’t go to see Elorn Sharrow any more. She told me that herself. So–where does he go?”

“Well, but–”

“Where does he go–every evening?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t answer–”

“Every evening!” she repeated absently.

“Good heavens, Helen–”

“And what is on that boy’s mind? There’s something on it.”

“His business, let us hope–”

She shook her head: “I know my son,” she remarked.

“So do I. What is particularly troubling you, dear? There’s something you haven’t told me.”