"Heartsease for thought," said Gerard, and kissed her dimpling mouth.
On the stairs a few minutes later, Corrie overtook his sister and caught her in his arms.
"I need a bath and some fresh rags and—well, everything," he laughed. "I'm not fit to touch—do you mind?"
She clasped her arms around his neck, nestling her soft cheek against the rough, grimy cloth of his driving-suit.
"I love you! Oh, my dear, my dear, if mamma had lived, this year could never have happened! Not to you, nor to me."
He looked into her upturned face, realizing with her the difference that might have been wrought by a mother's clairvoyant tenderness and the link of a wife's understanding between her husband and her children. No, without this lack in the household the year's deception could not have endured. If the chain of Roses had not once been broken, it could not have come so near this later destruction.
"Flavia, you know I feel how good they have all been to me? You know what nonsense it was for Allan—he tells me I can't call my own brother 'Gerard'—what nonsense it was for him to suggest that I ever could blame anyone but myself for what I had to stand?"
"I know you feel it so, Corrie."
"Then, I want to say there was only you, Other Fellow, who never hurt or made it harder."
"Even—Allan?"