Victor sat in silence what time his mother decided whether she would have asparagus soup or consommé. It was his first experience with that degree of wealth which takes no thought of price, and glancing at the figures on the bill of fare his hair rose. Never in his life had he eaten a meal which cost as much as this one order of soup, and the fact that his mother gaily ordered the best indicated to him how deeply indebted she already was to her patroness. "There must be some very definite need which she supplies," he conceded, "or Mrs. Joyce would not so gladly pay her bills."
At the same time his respect and admiration for his mother returned. As the dinner went on her cheeks glowed with faint color. Her years of trouble seemed to slip away from her. She took on youthful grace and charm, glancing often at her handsome son with eyes of maternal pride and content. "It is so good to have you here," she silently expressed. He had never seen this care-free side of her, and the gayer she grew the more alien, in a sense, she became. She was instinctively the lady, of that he was assured, and though she could not follow Miss Wood in all of her flights of fancy and allusion, she plainly showed unusual powers of appreciation.
The talk also brought out the extraordinary intimacy of the three women. It appeared that Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Ollnee were inseparable, that she often took his mother to the opera and to the theater, and as they discussed various singers and actors, whose names alone he knew, his sense of being suburban deepened. "Why does this vivid and cultured woman seek my mother's society? For what reason does she lavish money upon her? Is it because of her personal charm? No," he decided, "that cannot be the reason." Beneath her cordial tone he thought he detected the reserve of one who is being kind to a dependent. "She's being nice to mother," he concluded, "because she thinks she's getting something special from her. Mother is a freak, not a friend. She considers her a kind of spiritual telephone."
Although Miss Wood devoted herself to the task of amusing him, and his face lost some of its gravest lines, yet he could not be denoted a careless youth, even when the wine came on. He was thinking too deeply to be outwardly ready of retort. It was too sudden a change from the pastoral air and quiet streets of Winona to be instantly assimilated. He remained sullen.