C., with all the K.C. manner, had told her
that _he_ did not need them either. She gave her dinner parties, her
receptions, her political gatherings--tremulous and smiling she faced a
world that thought her a wise, capable little woman, who would see her
husband a judge and peer one of these days.
"Mrs. Scarlett--a woman of great social ambition," was their definition
of her.
"Mrs. Scarlett--the mother of John," was her own.
II
On a certain night, early in the month of September, young John dreamt
again--but for the first time for many months--the dream that had, in
the old days, come to him so often. In those days, perhaps, he had not
called it a dream. He had not given it a name, and in the quiet early
days he had simply greeted, first a protector, then a friend. But that
was all very long ago, when one was a baby and allowed oneself to
imagine anything. He had, of course, grown ashamed of such confiding
fancies, and as he had become more confident had shoved away, with
stout, determined fingers, those dim memories, poignancies, regrets. How
childish one had been at four, and five, and six! How independent and
strong now, on the very edge of the world of school! It perturbed him,
therefore, that at this moment of crisis this old dream should recur,
and it perturbed him the more, as he lay in bed next morning and thought
it over, that it should have seemed to him at the time no dream at all,
but simply a natural and actual occurrence.
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