"He is mine now," said she. "He has a previous engagement, and, besides, I don't want him spoiled. Good-night to you. Come along, Jack, you are not too big to mind your mother, are you?"
The two walked slowly across the Green toward the campus. The communion of their uplifted souls was perfect, their happiness almost beyond words. She was first to break this rare, sweet silence, and strangely enough, she said nothing about the vindication and the triumph. Looking up into his face she almost whispered:
"Are you caring so much that Cynthia disappointed you to-day, dear boy of mine? Does it hurt and rankle? I could see it in your eyes to-night. Do you want to marry her very much? Are you sure of your heart?"
He winced a little and held her arm tighter than before, as he replied:
"Little Mother, it has been my first real love story, as you know. The thought of her has helped me over many a rough place. Before to-day she was always so quick to understand. And--and she seemed to like me better than any other fellow she knew. I was fairly aching to be worthy of her, to make my place in the world for her. I wasn't conceited enough to think she loved me. I was only hoping that some day--Any man has a right to do that, has he not?"
It was not easy for the mother to say what she wished to tell him, but at length her response was:
"I don't want you to think I am criticising her, or sitting in judgment, but you must not let her mar your faith and hope and happiness. I want to help you to guard those precious gifts. You must not blame her too much. You have been believing that she understood you, because you would have it that way. She is no older than you, a girl of twenty, accustomed to a wholly different life from yours. She was flattered by your attention, for you were a great man in her eyes. She liked you because no one can help liking you. But it made a difference when you were a hero knocked off his pedestal. And yet you expected to find in her sympathy a balm that even your mother could not give. Poor lad, mothers are handy sometimes, but most boys do not find it out until their mothers are gone from them."
"I thought I knew her so well," said he, after another silence. "It looks as if I had amused her and nothing more. But I have found you, and I have fallen head over heels in love with you, Little Mother, all over again, and I am going to kiss you right under this electric light."