“Good morning!” said she. “You look very thoughtful.”
“Yes. I’m thinking of taking a very unusual step.”
“What, pray?”
“Paying a visit to my mother,” and he looked at her.
“That means your father, too, does it not?”
“No,” he answered, still looking at her in the same thoughtful, absent way. “I frequently visit him. At present they are separated.”
Now it was her turn to be thoughtful. “That’s very sad, isn’t it?”
“Sadder than you’d think of; for, but for the irony of Fate, they would be quite inseparable.”
“And is it an unusual thing for you to visit her?”
“Yes; I do not care to burden her with my presence, unless there is some reason in it.”