Under
the present circumstances even neighbourly friendship with Sylvia would
be difficult. It was not that Mrs. Latham had overawed him in the least,
but she had raised in him so fierce and blinding a resentment by her only
half unconscious reference to his mother, that he resolved that under no
circumstances should she run the risk of being equally rebuffed. He would
protect her from a possible intercourse, where she could not be expected,
at her age, to hold her own, at no matter what cost to himself.
"Egg woman!" Was it not his mother's pride and endeavour, her thrift and
courage to carry on the great farm alone, and the price of such things as
those very eggs, that had carried through his dying father's wish, and
sent him to college, thus giving him his chance in the world? No regret
at the fact, no false pride, dawned on him even for a second. All his
rage was that such a woman as Sylvia's mother should have the power to
stir him so, and then his love for Sylvia herself, intensified by pity
for the unknown trouble that he sensed rather than read in her face, cut
into him like a wound. He felt as if he must pick her up in his strong
arms and bear her away from all those clamouring people; and then the
realization both of his inability and ignorance of her own attitude fell
upon him like a chill, for she had never written or said a word to him
that might not have passed between any two college friends.
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