I waved
before my eyes the flag of Brian's need, and my bad courage came back.
I let Mr. Beckett lead me to the sofa. I let his hand on my shoulder
gently press me to sit down by his wife, who had not spoken yet. Her
blue eyes, fixed with piteous earnestness on mine, were like those of a
timid animal, when it is making up its mind whether to trust and "take
to" a human stranger who offers advances. I seemed to _see_ her
thinking--thinking not so much with her brain as with her heart, as you
used to say Brian thought. I saw her ideas move as if they'd been the
works of a watch ticking under glass. I knew that she wasn't clever
enough to read my mind, but I felt that she was more dangerous, perhaps,
than a person of critical intelligence. Being one of those always-was,
always-will-be women--wife-women, mother-women she might by instinct see
the badness of my heart as I was reading the simple goodness of hers.
Her longing to know the soul of me pierced to it like a fine crystal
spear; and the pathos of this bereaved mother and father, who had so
generously answered my call, brought tears to my eyes. I had not winced
away from her blue searchlights, but tears gathered and suddenly poured
over my cheeks. Perhaps it was the tragedy of my own situation more than
hers which touched me, for I was pitying as much as hating myself. Still
the tears were true tears; and I suppose nothing I could have said or
done would have appealed to Jim Beckett's mother as they appealed.
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