"Yes, mother." He came across to her. He was holding a lighted candle in his hand. "Are you still up?"
"Yes, it isn't very late. Barely eleven. Come into the drawing-room."
They went back into the room. He closed the door behind him, then put the candle down on to a small round table; they sat in the candle-light, one on either side of the table.
He looked at her and thought how small and fragile she looked and how little, anyway, she meant to him.
How much most mothers meant to their sons, and how little she had ever meant to him! He had always taken his father's view of her, that it was necessary for her to be there, that she naturally did her best, but that she did not expect you to think about her.
"You ought to be in bed," he said, wishing that she would release him.
For the first time in her life she spoke to him spontaneously, losing entirely the sense that she had always had, that both he and his father would go away and leave her if she were tiresome. To-night he would not go away--not until she had struck her bargain with him.
"What have you been up to all these weeks, Falk?" she asked.
"Up to?" he repeated. Her challenge was unexpected.
"Yes; of course I know you're up to something, and you know that I know. You must tell me. I'm your mother and I ought to be told."