“Yes, mother, and what?”
“Well, dear, to go away, the very first week-end.”
“But you’ll be seeing lots of me all the week.”
“I wasn’t thinking of us, though of course we like to have you here. It was April; don’t you think it might rather hurt her feelings?”
“Oh, bother April!”
“But, dear....”
“I know, mother, but it’s April this and April that; it’s nothing but April.”
His mother raised to him a surprised, grieved face, but she made no answer, and Roland, standing beside the table, experienced the sensation of an anxious actor who has finished his speech in the middle of the stage and does not know how to reach the wings.
“You see, mother,” he began, but she raised a hand to stop him.
“No, dear, don’t explain: I understand.”