Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/162

 that. Although she dared not change her position to look at him, she was acutely aware of the relaxed careless pose of his body, and of the nonchalant turn of his head as he glanced at the girl who now came forward on the stage.

And then she felt with that sixth sense of her passion for Jean-Pierre that he had been struck, had been pierced, as though a knife had thrust him through and through. Although he had not moved—because he had not moved, had not changed a line of his careless attitude, she divined that he had been stricken into immobility. What was it? Was it the shock of disillusion, of disappointment at prosaic reality after a long, romantic dream? Or did he still find in the girl whatever strange sorcery had so bewitched his boyish fancy?

She herself sat as stiffly motionless as he, suffering so exquisite a torture of suspense that she dared not bring herself to end it by a look at his face.

Some one back of her coughed, and the sound broke the spell. She drew a long breath and resolutely turned her head towards her son.

"Oh, my Jean-Pierre, oh, my little boy! is it so you feel? Oh, my darling, do you want her, do you want anything in the world like that? My little boy, a man! To think that it is my little boy, thus burning with a man's desire! Oh, yes, Jean-Pierre, you shall have her … what is your mother for but to help you have what you want? Oh, poor boy, poor boy, to look at any woman so.… Oh, Jean-Pierre, if you knew women, how they only live to fool men … no woman on earth is worth …"

She saw now that his flaming young eyes were veiled with tears. She touched his arm, she smiled at him, closer to him than since his early childhood. And he took her hand, he smiled back, he looked at her as he had not once since his infatuation began—like her son, her only son once more letting her into his heart. She held tightly to his hand, now happy and at peace.

Thus together, hand in hand, they were looking up at the stage when the girl struck the final chord, and rising, turned