'But then why don't you? Surely a deanery of all places wants a wife in it?'
'Of course it does Those strings or rooms—empty, echoing. It shouts for a wife. Shouts, I tell you. At least mine does. But I've never found—I hadn't seen—'
He broke off, biting at the stalk of grass.
'But I remember you,' I went on eagerly, 'always surrounded by flocks of devoted women. Weren't any of them—?'
'No,' said my uncle shortly. And after a second of silence he said again, and so loud that I jumped, 'No!' And then he went on even more violently, 'They didn't give me a chance. They never let me alone a minute. After Winifred's death they were like flies. Stuck to me—made me sick—great flies crawling—' And he shuddered, and shook himself as though he were shaking off the lot of them.
I looked at him in amazement. 'Why,' I cried, 'you're talking exactly like a man!'
But he, staring at the view without seeing an inch of it, took no heed of me, and I heard him say under his breath as though I hadn't been there at all, 'My God, I'm so lonely at night!'
That finished it. In that moment I began to love my uncle. At this authentic cry of forlornness I had great difficulty in not bending over and putting my arms round him,—just to comfort him, just to keep him warm. It must be a dreadful thing to be sixty and all alone. You look so grown up. You look as though you must have so many resources, so few needs; and you are accepted as provided for, what with your career accomplished, and your houses and servants and friends and books and all the rest of it—all the empty, meaningless rest of it; for really you are the most miserable of motherless cold babies, conscious that you are motherless, conscious that nobody soft and kind and adoring is ever again coming to croon over you and kiss you good-night and be there next morning to smile when you wake up.
'Uncle Rudolph—' I began.
Then I stopped, and bending over took the stalk of grass he kept on biting out of his hand.