“Yes, you might send in a cup to me. No milk, no sugar, and strong, doushka. I’m dead tired.”
He had used the Russian word which had been his pet name for her in the nursery, which she could not remember his having used since she was a child. She went to him and stood by his chair, wishing she could love him.
“You are not ill, father?”
“No—no.”
“I think you ought not to work so much. Surely you have earned a rest?”
“I couldn’t retire, darling. You don’t understand.”
“I’m beginning to understand—how it holds you. Couldn’t—wouldn’t it be possible, father, for you to throw your mind back to the old days and what seemed worth while then?”
“We are not young twice,” he said, trying to laugh.
“No ... but that’s true of the young as well as of the old.”
He would not understand her. She withdrew a pace from him and steeled herself.