"I thought so the last time I saw him. And he's growing too fast for his strength, poor little chap. I notice," he added, gazing at her more intently than he had as yet permitted himself to do, "that he begins to look like you."
She smiled for the first time. "Oh, but I think he looks like you."
"No; Tom takes after me. He's a Walker. Chippie's—"
"A darling," she broke in. "But he's not strong. Ever since he had the scarlet fever—"
"Yes, I know. But it might have been worse. We might have lost him. Do you remember the night—?"
She put her hand to her eyes as if to shut out the vision of it. "Oh, that awful night! And you were more afraid than I was. Mothers are braver than fathers at times like that."
"It was watching the fight he put up. Gad, he was plucky, the poor little chap! And he was only three, wasn't he?"
"Three and five months."
"And he'll be eleven his next birthday. How the years fly! By the way, won't it soon be time for Tom to be going to boarding-school?"
They were being pushed and jostled by guards and passengers. Between sentences it was necessary to make room for some one going or coming. She was obliged to step back into her compartment. Having taken the seat in the corner by the window, she motioned with her hand toward that in the opposite corner by the door. In this way they were separated by the length and width of the compartment, the distance marking the other gulf between them.