"I'm afraid I'll be too tired, dear. But well see...."
"Of course, I wouldn't have you come if you felt tired; but it won't be half so jolly without you."
"We'll see, sweetheart," Sophy repeated. "I'll surely come with you if I'm able to...."
He rushed off into an eager description of Venetian glass-blowing.
"And they make every sort of thing, mother.... They even make stuff for dresses.... Oh, mother.... I'd love to buy you a spun-glass gown! 'Twould be like a sort of foggy rainbow—don't you s'pose so? I wonder if I could get glass slippers to go with it?... Wouldn't you like a glass gown, mother? You'd look just like a princess in the Arabian nights! You must have one!..."
He chattered like this for some time. Then just as she thought he was falling asleep, he roused.
"I say, mother dear.... Don't let Harold Grey know I got in your bed to wait for you.... He's an awfully set chap ... he'd think me so beastly soft. You see, his mother's always had his father to look after her.... So he couldn't understand how I feel about you ... being your only male relative, and all that...."
Sophy promised, kissing the red curls again for good night.
He was quiet for about five minutes; then once more he roused.
"I've just had such a stunning idea, mother," he announced. "I want us to write a book together ... when I know a bit more rhetoric, of course. But we might both be thinking up a subject. Wouldn't it be jolly to have our names printed together like that on the first page?... 'What-you-may-call-it ... by Sophy Chesney and her son Robert Cecil Chesney....'"