Annie blushed:
“That’s only Mr. Serge’s nonsense, Mr. Folyat. He goes on talking like that until Mrs. Entwistle shakes with laughter so that the chair you’re sitting in creaks. . . . Have you had a good day, Mr. Serge?”
“You shall tell me.” Serge produced his sketches and Annie looked at them.
“That’s a lovely one,” she said.
“May I see it?” asked Francis.
She handed him a sheet of paper on which was a drawing of a baby in an apple-tree with the wind blowing in its hair and bringing new wonder into its starry eyes.
“Mr. Serge does me one every week,” said Annie simply. “I keep them all.”
Francis held it up close to his face and peered over the top of it at Serge. Very solemnly he returned the drawing to Annie. . . . A moment or two later he leaned forward and said:
“I can remember you when you were like that, Serge. It’s a long time ago, and so many things have happened since then. You were very big and strong, and you used to laugh a great deal. . . . I remember your being ill, and then, when you were a little older, I remember your asking me all sorts of questions that I couldn’t answer. And then, quite suddenly, you weren’t a baby any longer and then you became a boy . . .”
“And then I went away. That is the whole history of any father and any son. Queer, isn’t it? . . . And then we never met again until we came across each other in Mrs. Entwistle’s heart.”