"But," he objected, "it would be too far from my children."
"Your children! Yes, I have often thought of them. Have you their portraits with you? Do let me see them!"
He really had the portraits with him, and as she repeated her wish, he showed them. The two girls did not interest her much but she was delighted at the eight-year-old fair boy with the upturned look. "What a lovely child's face! Isn't it a happiness to have such a child!"
"To have it to-day, and lose to-morrow!" he replied.
She now examined the photograph more exactly and began to compare it with the father somewhat too closely. He began to feel some of that shyness which a man feels before a woman when she assumes this rôle.
"It is you," she said, "and not you also."
He asked for no explanation, and she requested that she might keep the portrait by her.
They resumed the discussion of the proposed journey, but she was absent-minded and often let her looks rest on the photograph.
He could not guess what was in her mind but he noticed that there was a struggle of some kind and that she was on the point of forming a resolution. He felt how a network of fine sucker-like tendrils spread from her being and wove itself into his. Something fateful was impending. He felt depressed, longed for the circle of male friends whom he had abandoned, and asked her to release him from his promise not to go any more to the café.
"Are you longing to go down there again?" she said in a motherly voice. "Think of your little son!"