She had to explain everything to him before he would let her go. Then he began pleading: "Don't send me back to my room right away, mother.... I know it was rather girly of me to come and get in your bed like this.... But Rosa's a good old sort. She won't peach on me.... And I think it's rather natural, a chap being a bit girly about his mother when he thinks things might have happened to her, don't you?"
Sophy said that indeed she did, and that he should stay with her till morning—that it made her feel ever so much happier and safer to have him near her. Bobby snuggled down blissfully, keeping her hand in both his.
"After all," he said, "though I'm not grown, I'm the only man you've got.... It's nice to have a man awfully anxious about you, ain't it, mother?"
"Ah, yes, indeed it is!" she murmured.
He was silent for a few seconds; then he said:
"I am the only man you've got ... really, ain't I, mother?"
Sophy's heart stabbed. She put her other arm about him.
"Yes, Bobby—yes, darling," she said, holding him to her.
"I like awfully being your only man," he murmured. "I ... I like the 'sponsibility."
"Dear heart!..." she murmured back, her lips on his curls.