"Mother," said he, and didn't know why he began or indeed that he was going to say just that at all, "do you ever wish you could run away?"
She gave the corner of the book a pat with one beautiful hand.
"I do run away," she said. "I was a good many miles from here when you came in. And I shall be again when you are gone. Among the rogues, such as we don't see."
"What is it?"
"Mysteries of Paris."
"That's our vice, isn't it," said Alston, "yours and mine, novel reading?"
"You're marked with it," said she.
There was something in the quiet tone that arrested him and made him look at her more sharply. The tone seemed to say she had not only read novels for a long time, but she had had to read them from a grave design. "It does very well for me," she said, "but it easily mightn't for you. Alston, why don't you run away?"
"Would you like to go abroad?" he asked her then, "with Mary? Would you like me to take you?"