accumulated forces of her being on the son whom she idealized after the
fashion of her type; and as she had corrected his obvious faults when he
was a boy, it was quite true that he was kind, amiable, honest, honorable,
patriotic, industrious, clean, polite, and moral; if hardly as handsome as
Apollo or as brilliant and gifted as she permitted herself to believe.

"What do you mean?" she repeated, although she lowered her voice. It was
rarely that it assumed an edge when addressing her husband. She had never
reproached him for being a failure, for she had recognized his limitations
early and accepted her lot. But something in his tone shook her maternal
complacence and roused her to instant defense.

Mr. Dwight took his pipe from his mouth and also cast a glance toward the
parlor, but the absorbed players were beyond the range of his rather weak
voice.

"I mean this," he said with nothing of his usual vague hesitancy of speech.
"I'm not so sure that Morty is beyond clerk size."

"You--you--John Dwight--your son--" The thin layer of pale flesh on
Mrs. Dwight's face seemed to collapse upon its harsh framework with the
terrified wrath that shook her. Her mouth fell apart, and hot smarting
tears welled slowly to her eyes, faded with long years of stitching; not
only for her own family but for many others when money had been more than
commonly scarce. "Mortimer can do anything. Anything."

"Can he?" Why doesn't he show it then? He went to work at sixteen and is
now twenty-two. He is drawing just fifty dollars a month. He's well liked
in the firm, too."