The epithet of affection roused Anne to swift suspicion.
"What's he done then?"
Alf chewed the end of a cigarette.
"Don't ask me," he said. "Talk o the town!—I could 'ide me ead with shyme." He looked up suddenly and stared his mother blankly in the face.
"Little better nor a common you know."
"Common what?" asked his mother harshly.
Alf, like many another sinner, had a genuine and almost child-like belief in his mother's innocence and lack of knowledge of those processes of nature with which she might be assumed to be familiar. He raised a deprecatory hand as though to brush her irritably aside.
"You wouldn't understand if I was to tell you," he groaned, screwing up his little yellow face as he did when wrestling in prayer for sinners. "Nor I wouldn't wish you to. My heart's fair broke. That's enough for you." He buried his face in his hands. "He's been a bad brother to me, very bad. Couldn't well ha been worse. Anybody could tell you that. But blood is blood, and blood is thicker nor what water is, as I'm finding now to my cost."
Anne Caspar came closer.
"Is he goin to marry her?" she asked.