He looked at her with the most winning interrogative eyes. His whole manner implied that everything which touched and concerned her touched and concerned him; and, moreover, that she had given him in some sort a right to share her thoughts and difficulties. Catherine struggled with herself.
'I trust it may answer,' she said, in a low voice.
But she would say no more, and he felt rebuffed. His buoyancy began to desert him.
'It must be a great trial to Mrs. Elsmere,' she said presently with an effort, once more steering away from herself and her concerns, 'this going back to her old home.'
'It is. My father's long struggle for life in that house is a very painful memory. I wished her to put it off till I could go with her, but she declared she would rather get over the first week or two by herself. How I should like you to know my mother, Miss Leyburn!
At this she could not help meeting his glance and smile, and answering them, though with a kind of constraint most unlike her.
'I hope I may some day see Mrs. Elsmere,' she said.
'It is one of my strongest wishes,' he answered, hurriedly, 'to bring you together.'
The words were simple enough; the tone was full of emotion. He was fast losing control of himself. She felt it through every nerve, and a sort of wild dread seized her of what he might say next. Oh, she must prevent it!
'Your mother was with you most of your Oxford life, was she not?' she said, forcing herself to speak in her most everyday tones.
He controlled himself with a mighty effort.
'Since I became a Fellow. We have been alone in the world so long. We have never been able to do without each other.'
'Isn't it wonderful to you?' said Catherine, after a little electric pause--and her voice was steadier and clearer than it had been since the beginning of their conversation--'how little the majority of sons and daughters regard their parents when they come to grow up and want to live their own lives? The one thought seems to be to get rid of them, to throw off their claims, to cut them adrift, to escape them--decently, of course, and under many pretexts, but still to escape them. All the long years of devotion and self-sacrifice go for nothing.'
He looked at her quickly--a troubled, questioning look.