"Hark, mother, do you hear that robin? That's the first I've heard this autumn," he exclaimed as he bent to kiss her.
In the silence of their first embrace the birdsong passed into the dim green recesses of the day, vanishing like the voice of her son's vanishing childhood.
"Do you remember that fatal day when I killed a robin?" he asked.
"No, dearest, I'd forgotten that you'd ever killed anything."
"Why, mother, when I had that air-gun I killed everything I saw until that day."
"How you exaggerate, my Richard."
"Yes, I did indeed. But that day I'd missed everything, and then sitting on a branch of that oak, the one Geoff and I planted to shade us in our old age, I saw a robin. I fired and killed him, and I was so shocked at what I'd done that I've never really been able to kill even a partridge since with any pleasure."
"Always such a dear little boy," she exclaimed, holding tight to her son's arm.
"Was I?" Richard laughed. "I'm afraid I must always have kept my good behavior for you. Aren't your phloxes splendid this year? Best I've ever seen."
They paced the walk arm-in-arm, admiring the glow of color. At last Richard said: