‘Do you miss Legs very much?’ she asked. ‘His bodily presence, I mean, of course.’
‘Of course I do, just as you do. I miss him all the time. Oh, he is in the room, and he laughs at us, or with us. I know that.’
‘Then what do you miss?’ she asked.
‘The young body about the house.’
Then Helen said: ‘Oh, you darling!’
That sort of remark is always extremely pleasant, but I had no notion of her artfulness. I am glad to say that she has often said it before, so that it was not particularly stupid of me not to guess that it meant anything especial. And with her artfulness she changed the subject to that which I happened to be thinking about, thus making no transition.
‘I gave up,’ she said. ‘I found all my things were so connected with Legs that I couldn’t destroy them. It is just what you said. We want to keep the young thing in the house, since we are getting old—yes, it’s no use saying “Pouf!”—and I can’t destroy anything connected with him. So shall we move our rubbish straight into Legs’ room, and make a sort of young museum? Then, when we feel particularly middle-aged, we can go up there and sit among the young things. If we don’t do that, we must clear out his room as well, and I can’t see how we can. There are rough copies of letters to that dreadful Charlotte; there is a letter in his handwriting, there on his table, beginning——’
‘Beginning “You’re a damned fool!”’ said I, ‘“but I don’t intend to quarrel with you.” Did you mean that one?’
‘Then you have been there, too?’ she said.
‘Why, of course, every day. I go when you attend to household affairs after breakfast; you go when you say you are going to bed. Didn’t you know?’