"I shall read in bed," he said sullenly.
"Don't set yourself alight, then."
"Oh, mother——" She always said that to him.
The kitchen was filled with a brooding silence when he had gone; it hung heavily about the man and woman who tried to talk as though they had no thought beyond the words which came so slowly until Edward Webb gave way to his wish to talk about his children. Experience and Nancy's promptings had taught him that no subject brought people to yawns more quickly and, indeed, it was too sacred to be dragged before indifference, but he felt hopeful of Clara for the warmth and breadth of motherliness were plain in her. Moreover, it was necessary that something should be said, and she was silent. He could hear the rubbing of her hands against each other.
"May I tell you about my little girls?" he said.
"Will you?" Her smile was not the perfunctory one which had disheartened him sometimes. "I should like to have had a daughter," she added.
His shyness fell from him as he talked. He told her of Grace's beauty and her skill in dancing, he told her of Theresa's cleverness.
"Is she pretty, too?"
"No. No, I suppose you wouldn't call her pretty, but it doesn't seem to matter. Why, I hadn't even thought of it before. Theresa is not like other children."
This was what Clara had thought, but never said, of her own son.