"Boy-lad," he said in deeper tones than of old, as they shook hands.
Ernie looked round like one lost.
The room, too, was as greatly changed as its inmate. But for a bowl of crimson roses on the book-shelf it might have been called austere. The Persian rug had gone, the writing-table was bare of the familiar manuscript. The book-shelves had disappeared to make way for a piano. The walls were still brown, and from them Lely's Cavalier looked down with faintly ironical eyes upon his descendants. It was the only picture on the walls.
"Where are the books then, dad?" Ernie asked.
"I sent them down to Fowler's," the other answered. "I've done with books—all except those."
He pointed to a single row, perhaps a dozen in all, among which Ernie recognized the blue backs of the Golden Treasury Series, the old edition of Wordsworth, homely as the poet himself, and a little brown-paper bound new Testament.
Ernie sat down. Now he understood that pathetic look in his mother's eyes. His father was no longer dependent on her; and she was missing that dependency as only a woman who has given her life to propping an invalid can miss it.
"Have you joined the Friends, dad?" he asked earnestly.
The old man shook his head.
"I shall never join another sect. They're nearest the Truth, it seems to me—a long way nearest. But they aren't there yet. None of us are."