"Keep friends with your sister. Keep friends with Ronald," she enjoined him. "I don't think he'll rise to distinction in the Church, but he's a good man, Arthur."
"When I'm Lord Chancellor, mother, I'll give him a fat living!"
"You've grown into a fine man, Arthur. You're handsomer than your father was." The gentle voice had grown drowsy and low. He saw that she was falling into a doze—perhaps with a vision of her own youth before her eyes. He did not disengage his hand from hers until she slept.
Thus he came nearer to his mother, and for the sake and remembrance of that blessed his visit home. But to Anna and her future husband any approach was far more difficult. There he seemed met by an obstinate incompatibility. Ronald's outlook, which now governed and bounded Anna's, was entirely professional—with one subject excepted. He was an enthusiast about football. He had been a great player, and Arthur a good one. They fought old battles over again, or recited to one another the deeds of heroes. There are men who, when they meet, always talk about the same subject, because it is the only thing they have in common, and it acts as a bridge between them. Whenever a topic became dangerous, Arthur changed it for football. Football saved the situation between them a hundred times.
"I really never knew how tremendously Ronald was interested in it, till you came this time, Arthur," Anna remarked innocently. "I suppose he thought I wasn't worth talking to about it."
"Of course you weren't, my dear," said Arthur. "What woman is?" He smiled slyly over his successful diplomacy.
But though football may be a useful buffer against collisions of faith and morals, and may even draw hearts together for a season in common humanity, it can hardly form the cement of a home. His mother was right. When once she was gone—and none dared hope long life for her—there would be no home for him in the place of his youth. As he walked over the hills, on the day before he was to return to London, he looked on the prospect with the eye of one who takes farewell. His life henceforth lay elsewhere. The chapter of boyhood and adolescence drew to its close. The last tie that bound him to those days grew slack and would soon give way. He had no more part or lot in this place.
Save for the love of that weak hand which would fain have detained him, but for his own sake beckoned him to go, he was eager to depart. He craved again the fulness of life and activity. He wanted to be at work—to try again and make a better job of it.
"I suppose I shall make an ass of myself again and again, but at any rate I'll work," he said, and put behind him the mocking memory of Henry encountering the Law Reports in full career. Retro Satanas! He would work—even though the farce succeeded!