When she took infectious
cases and dared neither write nor speak to him, they had an hour
planned beforehand when she would smile at him from an open window
and wave her hand.
But she was not invariably busy. There were intervals between her
engagements when she remained at home; when those rooms,
ordinarily so lonely and still, took on a wonderful brightness
with her presence; when Raymond, coming back from school late in
the afternoon, ran along the streets singing, as he thought of his
mother awaiting him. This stern woman, the harsh daughter of a
harsh race, had but a single streak of tenderness in her withered
heart. To her son she gave transcendent love, and the whole of her
starved nature went out to him in immeasurable devotion. Their
poverty, the absence of all friends, the burden of debt, the
unacknowledged disgrace, and (harder still to bear) the long and
enforced separations from each other, all served to draw the pair
into the closest intimacy. Raymond grew towards manhood without
ever having met a girl of his own age; without ever having had a
chum; without knowing the least thing of youth save much of its
green-sickness and longing.
When the great debt had been paid off and the last of the notes
cancelled there came no corresponding alleviation of their
straitened circumstances. Raymond had graduated from the High
School and was taking the medical course at Columbia University.
Every penny was put by for the unavoidable expenses of his
tuition.
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