'
'Me?'
'We can only come to one, you see.'
'Then why me?'
'That's the reason.' He is evidently moving about, looking curiously at
old acquaintances. 'Hello, here's your old jacket, greasier than ever!'
'Me? But, Dick, it is as if you had forgotten. It was your mother who
was everything to you. It can't be you if you have forgotten that.
I used to feel so out of it; but, of course, you didn't know.'
'I didn't know it till lately, father; but heaps of things that I didn't
know once are clear to me now. I didn't know that you were the one who
would miss me most; but I know now.'
Though the voice is as boyish as ever, there is a new note in it of
which his father is aware. Dick may not have grown much wiser, but
whatever he does know now he seems to know for certain.
'_Me_ miss you most? Dick, I try to paint just as before. I go to the
club. Dick, I have been to a dinner-party. I said I wouldn't give in.'
'We like that.'
'But, my boy----'
Mr. Don's arms have gone out to him again. Dick evidently wriggles away
from them. He speaks coaxingly.
'I say, father, let's get away from that sort of thing.
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