“No! Let me say all I’ve got to say first, and then you can answer me. I’ve been thinking about it all night, and I know just what I ought to do. I know very well, too, that most women would just make you forgive as much as you could and then pretend to you and to themselves that nothing had ever happened. But we’re not like that, you and I. We’re like two men, and since we’ve begun in that way, it’s not possible to turn round and be different now, in the face of a difficulty. There are people who would think me foolish, and call me quixotic, and say, ‘But it’s your own son--what a fuss you’re making about nothing.’ Wouldn’t they? I know they would. It seems to me that, if anything, it’s much worse to insult one’s own son, as I did you, than somebody else’s son, to whom one owes nothing. I’m not going to put on sackcloth and sit in the ashes and cry. That wouldn’t help me a bit, nor you either. Besides, other people, as a rule, couldn’t understand the thing. You never told me a lie in your life. Last Monday when you came home after that accident, and weren’t quite yourself, you told me the exact truth about everything that had happened. You never even tried to deceive me. Of course you have your life, and I have mine. I have always respected your secrets, haven’t I, Jack?” “Indeed you have, mother.” “I know I have, and if I take credit for it, that only makes all this worse. I’ve never asked you questions which I thought you wouldn’t care to answer. I’ve never been inquisitive about all this affair with Katharine. I don’t even know at the present moment whether you’re engaged to her still, or not. I don’t want to know--but I hope you’ll marry her some day, for I’m very fond of her. No--I’ve never interfered with your liberty, and I’ve never been willing to listen to what people wished to tell me about you. I shouldn’t think it honest. And in that way we’ve lived very harmoniously, haven’t we?” “Mother, you know we have,” answered John, earnestly. “All that makes this very much worse. One drop of blood will turn a whole bowl of clean water red. It wouldn’t show at all if the water were muddy. If you and I lived together all our lives, we should never forget last night.” “We could try to,” said John. “I’m willing.” Mrs. Ralston paused and looked at him a full minute in silence. Then she put out her hand and touched his arm. “Thank you, Jack,” she said gravely. John tried to press her hand, but she withdrew it.