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Updated: May 24, 2025
Carshaw drew his chair closer to his mother and placed an arm around her shoulder. "Yes," he said. "Rex," she murmured brokenly, hiding her face, "do you forgive me?" "Mother, I ask you to forgive me if I said harsh things." There was silence for a while. Then she raised her eyes. They were wet, but smiling. "This Mrs. Marchbanks," she went on bravely, "had your Winifred's face.
She was pleased to see him. Their common fund of scandal and epigram would carry them safely over a cheerful hour. "And as to the good old firm of Carshaw prosperous as usual, I hope," said Meiklejohn, balancing an egg-shell tea-cup. Mrs. Carshaw shrugged. "I don't know much about it," she said, "but I sometimes hear talk of bad times and lack of capital. I suppose it is all right.
Carshaw could no longer sit still. He paced restlessly about the wet grass to ease his anxious heart. And so another quarter of an hour wore slowly. Then the sound of a fast-moving car broke the silence. Down the road a pair of dragon-eyes blazed. The car came like the chariots of Sennacherib, in reckless flight. Soon it was upon him. He drew back out of the road toward his own racer.
Vane," said Steingall encouragingly; "we'd like a word with you." The planets must have been hostile to the Meiklejohn family in that hour. Brother William was being badly handled by Mrs. Carshaw in Atlantic City, and Brother Ralph was receiving a polite request to come up-stairs and be cuffed. But Ralph Vane Meiklejohn faced the odds creditably.
"The yacht mystery" had apparently become a mere memory in the Bureau. So Voles came, with him Mick the Wolf, carrying a left arm in splints, and the Senator thought he was taking no risk in calling at the up-town hotel where the pair occupied rooms the day after Carshaw blurted out Winifred's name to Helen Tower.
"And we also are certain of it, Mr. Carshaw," said Steingall placidly. "Sit down. Do you smoke? You'll find these cigars in good shape," and he pushed forward a box. "But, is nothing being done?" Nevertheless, Carshaw sat down and took a cigar. He had sufficient sense to see that bluster was useless and only meant loss of dignity. "Sure. That's why I asked you to come along."
There may be, as the Chinese proverb has it, thirty-six different kinds of mothers-in-law, but there is only one mother. Steingall, not Clancy, presented his bulk at Carshaw's apartment next morning. He contrived to have a few minutes' private talk with Mrs. Carshaw while her son was dressing.
It grew darker and darker. Down there below feet passed and repassed in multitudes, like drops of the eternal cataract of life. Winifred's eyes rested often on the spot where Rex Carshaw had spoken to her and had knocked down Fowle, her tormentor. In hours of trouble, when the mind is stunned, it will often go off into musings on trivial things.
I have seen you before somewhere it seems to me in an old dream. Good-by, good-by! It had to be done, and I have done it, but not gladly. Heaven help us women, and especially all mothers!" Winifred could not answer. She was choked with sobs, so Mrs. Carshaw took her departure in a kind of stealthy haste. She was far more unhappy now than when she entered that quiet house.
Carshaw stood silent, momentarily stunned, like one before whom a thunderbolt has really exploded. At last, looking at the pattern of a frayed carpet, he said humbly enough: "Well, then, I must be a very unfortunate sort of man, Winifred." "Don't believe me!" Winifred wished to cry out. But the words were checked on her white lips.
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