For a long space the Colonel walked in silence, his brow furrowed. Then, turning to his companion, he said:
“But—Mrs. Roosevelt! How am I going to break it to her?”
It was of his wife and not of himself that the Colonel thought and pondered.
Abruptly he turned back to the house—to face the hardest task of his life. For the first time death had entered the intimate Roosevelt family circle.
A few hours later the newspaper man saw the Colonel again. With him was Mrs. Roosevelt, with eyes bright and voice steady. Yet it was plain that she had been told.
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Thus, with telegrams and cablegrams of sympathy flooding the little Oyster Bay office by thousands, the father and mother of the boy who had given his life above the lines—received the news that their youngest born would never return.”
The only public statement Colonel Roosevelt made concerning Quentin’s death was in every way typical of the man: