The deep and sobbing breaths continued until suddenly Burns's
hand was laid firmly upon the hand which clutched a handkerchief wet
with many tears. He spoke now in a new tone, one she had never before
heard from him addressed to herself:
"This," he said, "isn't worthy of you, my friend."
It was as if her breath were temporarily suspended while she listened.
People were not accustomed to tell Mrs. Alexander King that her course
of action was unworthy of her.
"No man or woman has a right to dictate to another what he shall do,
provided the thing contemplated is not an offense against another. You
have no right to set your will against your son's when it is a matter
of his life's happiness."
She seized on this last phrase. "But that's why I do oppose him. I want
him to be happy--heaven knows I do! He can't be happy--this way."
"How do you know that? You don't know it. You are just as likely to make
him bitterly unhappy by opposing him as by letting him alone. And I can
tell you one thing surely, Mrs. King: Jordan will do as he wishes in
spite of you, and all you will gain by opposition will be not a gain,
but a sacrifice--of his love."
She shivered. "How can you think he will be so selfish?"
Burns had some ado to keep his rising temper down. "Selfish--to marry
the woman he wants instead of the woman you want? That's an old, old
argument of selfish mothers."
The figure on the couch stiffened. "Doctor Burns! How can you speak so,
when all I ask for is my son's best good?" The words ended in a wail.
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