ime," she said.
"I suppose he thinks as he says--that he'd only be in the way here.
That's a man's view! It's selfish, but who isn't selfish?"

Thus, without her being in the least aware of the process, her mind was
preparing her for what was about to happen. It is a poor mind, or poorly
served by its subconscious half, that is taken wholly by surprise by any
blow. There are always forewarnings; and while the surface mind
habitually refuses to note them, though they be clear as sunset
silhouettes, the subconscious mind is not so stupid--so blind under the
sweet spells of that arch-enchanter, vanity.

At last Ross came, but without sending Adelaide word. His telegram to his
mother gave just time for a trap to meet him at the station. As he was
ascending the broad, stone approaches of the main entrance to the house
at Point Helen, she appeared in the doorway, her face really beautiful
with mother-pride. For Janet she cared as it is the duty of parent to
care for child; Ross she loved. It was not mere maternal imagination that
made her so proud of him; he was a distinguished and attractive figure of
the kind that dominates the crowds at football games, polo and tennis
matches, summer resort dances, and all those events which gather together
the youth of our prosperous classes. Of the medium height, with a strong
look about the shoulders, with sufficiently, though not aggressively,
positive features and a clear skin, with gray-green eyes, good teeth, and
a pleasing expression, he had an excellent natural basis on which to
build himself into a particularly engaging and plausible type of
fashionable gentleman. He was in traveling tweeds of pronounced plaid
which, however, he carried off without vulgarity. His trousers were
rolled high, after the fashion of the day, to show dark red socks of the
same color as his tie and of a shade harmonious to the stripe in the
pattern of shirt and suit and to the stones in his cuff links. He looked
clean, with the cleanness of a tree after the measureless drenching of a
storm; he had a careless, easy air, which completely concealed his
assiduous and self-complacent self-consciousness. He embraced his mother
with enthusiasm.

"How well you look!" he exclaimed; then, with a glance round, "How well
_everything_ looks!"

His mother held tightly to his arm as they went into the house; she
seemed elder sister rather than mother, and he delighted her by
telling her so--omitting the qualifying