“Yes, dear?”
“It's extremely painful for me to talk, but there's no help for it. I don't know if you understand how much you are to me I've never spoken of it, I didn't think it necessary; but—but you're everything. Your mother—” he paused, staring at his finger-bowl of Venetian glass.
“Yes?”'
“I've only you to look to. I've never had—never wanted anything else, since you were born.”
“I know,” Fleur murmured.
Soames moistened his lips.
“You may think this a matter I can smooth over and arrange for you. You're mistaken. I'm helpless.”
Fleur did not speak.
“Quite apart from my own feelings,” went on Soames with more resolution, “those two are not amenable to anything I can say. They—they hate me, as people always hate those whom they have injured.” “But he—Jon—”
“He's their flesh and blood, her only child. Probably he means to her what you mean to me. It's a deadlock.”