"And you don't?"
In a long silence he looked at her. She looked at him. Each strove after the mystery which warps the child to the mother, the mother to the child. Where was it? What was it? How could you tell it when you saw it? And if you saw it, could you miss it and pass it by? He sought it in her eyes; she sought it in his. They sought it by all the avenues of intuitive, spiritual sight.
She tapped her heart again. Her utterance was imperious, insistent, and yet soft.
"And you don't—feel it there?"
He too spoke softly. "No, I don't."
In reluctant dismissal he turned away from her. With her quick little gasp of a sob she turned away from him.
XLV
To Tom Whitelaw this was the conclusion of the whole matter. A son must have a mother as well as a father. If there was no mother there was no son. The inference brought him a relief in which there were two strains of regret.