," he said, nearly dead with the ordeal. And it was all over.

When Morel and Arthur were in bed, Paul sat talking, as he often did,
with his mother.

"You're not sorry she's married, mother, are you?" he asked.

"I'm not sorry she's married--but--it seems strange that she should go
from me. It even seems to me hard that she can prefer to go with her
Leonard. That's how mothers are--I know it's silly."

"And shall you be miserable about her?"

"When I think of my own wedding day," his mother answered, "I can only
hope her life will be different."

"But you can trust him to be good to her?"

"Yes, yes. They say he's not good enough for her. But I say if a man
is GENUINE, as he is, and a girl is fond of him--then--it should be all
right. He's as good as she."

"So you don't mind?"

"I would NEVER have let a daughter of mine marry a man I didn't FEEL to
be genuine through and through. And yet, there's a gap now she's gone."

They were both miserable, and wanted her back again. It seemed to Paul
his mother looked lonely, in her new black silk blouse with its bit of
white trimming.

"At any rate, mother, I s'll never marry," he said.

"Ay, they all say that, my lad. You've not met the one yet. Only wait a
year or two."

"But I shan't marry, mother. I shall live with you, and we'll have a
servant."

"Ay, my lad, it's easy to talk. We'll see when the time comes."

"What time? I'm nearly twenty-three."

"Yes, you're not one that would marry young. But in three years' time--"

"I shall be with you just the same."

"We'll see, my boy, we'll see."

"But you don't want me to marry?"

"I shouldn't like to think of you going through your life without
anybody to care for you and do--no."

"And you think I ought to marry?"

"Sooner or later every man ought."

"But you'd rather it were later."

"It would be hard--and very hard. It's as they say:

"'A son's my son till he takes him a wife,
But my daughter's my daughter the whole of her life.'"

"And you think I'd let a wife take me from you?"

"Well, you wouldn't ask her to marry your mother as well as you," Mrs.
Morel smiled.

"She could do what she liked; she wouldn't have to interfere."

"She wouldn't--till she'd got you--and then you'd see."

"I never will see. I'll never marry while I've got you--I won't."

"But I shouldn't like to leave you with nobody, my boy," she cried.

"You're not going to leave me. What are you? Fifty-three!