"I'm never to touch it again, never! Mums said so. Isn't that a punishment?"
"It was my fault," acknowledged Chris meekly; "I aggravated you."
Noel nodded. "And so I did, too. I've finished telling everybody I'm sorry, and now I'm going to sleep."
Chris looked at him.
"We'll shake hands on it," he said. "That's what we do at school when we've had a fight."
So Noel's fat dimpled hand and Chris's were clasped together, and then Chris crept silently out of the room. His mother was standing by a passage window looking out into the dusky garden. A young moon was rising over a hill in the distance. Her thoughts were away in India with her husband. She was longing, as she so often did, to have him once more by her side.
Chris leant his head against her shoulder.
"We're all right, Mother. I'm so sorry we've made you sad."
She put her arm round him and said gently:
"I've been wondering what kind of boys your father will meet when he comes home. Whether he'll be disappointed in them, and tell me that I have failed to train them rightly: that I have spoilt them. I wish he were here to talk to you, Chris."