That's how it
is Blossom--I'm tied, you see--tied hand and foot."
"Yes, I see," she rejoined. "Your uncle was tied, too. I've heard that
he used to say--tied with a silk string, he called it."
"You wouldn't have me murder my mother, would you?" he demanded
irritably, kicking at the twisted root of a willow.
"Good-bye, Mr. Jonathan," she responded quietly, and started toward the
house.
"Wait a minute,--oh, Blossom, come back!" he entreated--but without
pausing she ran quickly up the crooked path under the netting of
shadows.
"So that's the end," said Gay angrily. "By Jove, I'm well out of it,"
and went home to dinner. "I won't see her again," he thought as he
entered the house, and the next instant, when he ascended the staircase,
"I never saw such a mouth in my life. It looks as if it would melt if
you kissed it---"
The dinner, which was pompously served by Abednego and a younger butler,
seemed to him tasteless and stale, and he complained querulously of
a bit of cork he found in his wine glass. His mother, supported by
cushions in her chair at the head of the table, to which he had brought
her in his arms, lamented his lack of appetite, and inquired tenderly if
he were suffering? For the first time in his life he discovered that
he was extinguishing, with difficulty, a smouldering resentment against
her.
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