He sighed. 'I feel rather rotten. I can't read, can't settle to anything.'
She looked at him sympathetically. He felt impelled to go on.
'I'm a bit worried,' he continued.
'About your son?'
'No, not about him so much, though I wish he would get a flesh wound and be sent back,' his father said, laughing. 'But about myself.'
She looked at him in silence.
'You know—what I told you.'
She made no answer, looking away to give him time to speak.
'I've made a suggestion,' he said slowly…. 'If it's accepted it'll alter all my life. Of course I shall go out again. But still it will alter my life.'
Suddenly, overpowered by the longing for sympathy, he said to himself aloud.