'Why not, Grace?'
She considers, for she is so sure that she must know the answer better
than he. 'I suppose it is just that a son is so much more to a mother
than to a father.'
'I daresay.'
A little gust of passion shakes her. 'How you can read about the war
nowadays!'
He says firmly to her--he has had to say it a good many times to
himself, 'I'm not going to give in.' But he adds, 'I am so sorry I was
in the way, Grace. I wasn't scouting you, or anything of that sort. It's
just that I can't believe in it.'
'Ah, Robert, you would believe if Dick had been to you what he was
to me.'
'I don't know.'
'In a sense you may be glad that you don't miss him in the way I do.'
'Yes, perhaps.'
'Good-night, Robert.'
'Good-night, dear.'
He is alone now. He stands fingering the fishing-rods tenderly, then
wanders back into the ingle-nook. In the room we could scarcely see him,
for it has gone slowly dark there, a grey darkness, as if the lamp,
though still burning, was becoming unable to shed light. Through the
greyness we see him very well beyond it in the glow of the fire.
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