Read "Young People's Pride" by Stephen Vincent Benet online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"Why, Mr. Piper! " was Oliver's first and wholly inane remark.
It was not what he had intended to say at all -- something rather more dramatic and on the lines of "Shoot if you must this old grey head, but if you will only listen to a reasonable explanation -- " had been uppermost in his mind. But the sight of Peter's father crouched over what must be Mrs. Severance's body, his weak hands fumbling for her wrist and heart, his voice thin with a senile sorrow as if he had been stricken at once and in an instant with a palsy of incurable age, brought the whole world of Southampton and house-parties and reality that Oliver thought he had lost touch with forever, back to him so vividly that all he could do was gape at the tableau on the floor.