Jim refused to make disclosures. He was wakened from his coma by
Mrs. Thropp's casual remark:
"Say, Jimsy, how do folks do, on East here? Will your mother call
on me and Kedzie, or will she look for us to call on her first?"
"My God!" thought Jim.
"What say?" said Mrs. Thropp.
Jim floundered and threshed. He had never before realized what his
mother's famous pride might mean. She had always been only mother
to him, devoted, tender, patient, forgiving, amusing, sympathetic,
anxious, flattered by his least attention. Yet he had heard her
spoken of as a human glacier for freezing social climbers and pushers
of every sort. She was huge and slow; she could be frightfully cold
and crushing.
Now he understood what congelation the trembling approachers to her
majesty must have suffered. He was afraid to think what she would
do to the Thropps. Her first glance would turn them to icicles and
her first word would snap them to bits.
It is hard enough for any mother to receive the news that her son
is in love with any woman and wants to marry her. Mrs. Dyckman
must learn that her adored child had transferred his loyalty to
a foreigner, a girl she had never seen, could not conceivably have
selected, and could never approve. Even the Prodigal Son, when
he went home, did not bring a wife with him. Ten to one if he had
brought one she would have got no veal--or if she got it she would
not have cared for it.
Jim could not be blind even now in his alarm to Kedzie's intense
prettiness, but seeing her as through his mother's eyes coldly,
he saw for the first time the plebeiance of her grace.
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