During this process he heard his mother being summoned to the
telephone in the hall, not far from his door, and then her voice
responding: "Yes? Oh, it's you! Indeed I should! . . . Of course. .
. . Then I'll expect you about three. . . Yes. Good-bye till then."
A few minutes later he heard her speaking to someone beneath his
window and, looking out, saw her directing the removal of plants from
a small garden bed to the Major's conservatory for the winter. There
was an air of briskness about her; as she turned away to go into the
house, she laughed gaily with the Major's gardener over something he
said, and this unconcerned cheerfulness of her was terrible to her
son.
He went to his desk, and, searching the jumbled contents of a drawer,
brought forth a large, unframed photograph of his father, upon which
he gazed long and piteously, till at last hot tears stood in his eyes.
It was strange how the inconsequent face of Wilbur seemed to increase
in high significance during this belated interview between father and
son; and how it seemed to take on a reproachful nobility--and yet,
under the circumstances, nothing could have been more natural than
that George, having paid but the slightest attention to his father in
life, should begin to deify him, now that he was dead.
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