“Well, Mother?” echoed the youth with a smile. Both spoke in German—a language then as unfamiliar in England as Persian.
“What are you thinking about so intently?”
“Life,” was the ready but unexpected answer.
“Past, present, future?”
“Past and future—hardly present. The past chiefly—the long ago.”
The woman moved uneasily, but did not answer.
“Mother, if I am of age to-day, I think I have the right to ask you a few questions. Do you accord it?”
“Ah!” she said, with a deep intonation. “I knew it would come some time. Well! what is to be must be. Speak, my son.”
The young man laid his hand affectionately on hers.
“Had it not better come?” he said. “You would not prefer that I asked my questions of others than yourself, nor that I shut them in my own soul, and fretted my heart out, trying to find the answer.”