“Not much; is it a comparison your mother would like?”
“Like? She is dead!” said he, rather falteringly.
I pressed his arm closer to mine.
“I understand you,” said he, with his cynic, repellent smile. “But you do wrong to feel for my loss. I feel for it; but no one who cares for me should sympathize with my grief.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother was not what the world would call a good woman. I did not love her the less for that. And now let us change the subject.”
“Nay; since you have said so much, Vivian, let me coax you to say on. Is not your father living?”
“Is not the Monument standing?”
“I suppose so; what of that?”
“Why, it matters very little to either of us; and my question answers yours.”