"Sorry for her? Of course I'm sorry for her. I'm sorry for any woman who makes a hash of things. But that"--the disciplinarian, finding that the luxurious room and the pleasant creature on the sofa were both affecting his judgment, momentarily revolted--"that don't alter facts. Marriage is marriage; and if your son runs away with my son's wife, you can't expect me to sympathize with either of 'em."
"But surely," Julia nearly purred, "surely, my dear admiral--sympathy apart--your son doesn't intend----"
"My dear lady,"--the disciplinarian in Billy subsided--"if I only knew what my son did intend, I might be able to help you. Whenever I try to talk to him about this business, he just shuts me up. What has your son got to say?"
And suddenly both of them began to laugh. Old age, the greatest tie in the world, made them for the moment peculiarly comrades. In the light of that comradeship, the young, even their own young, seemed less pathetic than to be envied. "After all," they thought, "it's all very sad; but it's worse for us than for them. They do get some fun out of these affairs. We don't. We only get the trouble; and we're too old for troubles."
"It isn't so much the scandal I mind," broke in the admiral, voicing their mutual idea; "it's the damned upset of the whole business. I like a quiet life, you know. And that seems the one thing one simply can't get nowadays. Not for love nor money."
For fully ten minutes they wandered away from the purpose in hand; discussing first their own era, then his profession, then her profession.
"Talking about books," said the admiral, "give me Surtees."
Truth to tell, the pair were rather enjoying themselves. Both belonged to the conversational school of an earlier day; and the flow of conversation was so satisfactory that--finally--it needed all Julia's strength of will, all her love for her son, to interpolate a crisp, "We don't seem to have come to any decision. You will try and do something, won't you, admiral?"
The sailor interrupted himself sufficiently to manage a courteous, "But, my dear lady, what can I do?"
"Couldn't you talk to your son again? Couldn't you tell him that he's doing himself just as much harm as he's doing his wife?"