“Don’t be silly. I couldn’t,” said Elsie, with a giggle that made René hate her. She ran upstairs and George patted his brother on the shoulder.
“Well? Still good enough for us? What do you think of her?”
“She’s pretty.”
“When you know her a bit you’ll want to go and do likewise, my son.”
Standing there huddled with his brother in the narrow lobby that seemed all coats and umbrellas, René remembered with a horrible vividness his brother coming to his bed and telling him how his father and mother were married on such a day and how, five months later, he, George, was born. And he remembered how he burst into tears, and when George asked him what he was howling for, he had said: “They didn’t want you,” a view of the matter to which George had remained insensible. He saw now that the revelation had broken the young intimacy that had always been between them. He said:
“Mother’s got out her best center for you.”
“Good old mother!” replied George. Then he raised his voice and bawled:
“Elsie!”
“Coming!”