But mummies are different. They belong—most of all when children are quite small.
Yet Robin's mother had gone.
As he pottered up and down the rather wet path that Saturday afternoon, he was remembering a conversation he had heard in the verandah just before the regiment left India. He was building a temple on the floor with his bricks, and mummy was very rapidly turning the heel of a sock while Major Booth talked to her. Major Booth was their doctor, and a very good doctor too.
"It's frightful waste, you know," Major Booth said, in a grumbling voice, "for you to go and rust in a remote village doing nursemaid to a couple of kids."
"You see, they happen to be my kids," mummy answered quietly.
"That's no argument just now," he retorted. "They are healthy, jolly kids; they've got a competent aunt—you told me so yourself. They'll be perfectly well cared for whether you are there or not—and you're wanted, I tell you."
Mummy gave a little gasp. "Oh, man!" she cried, "why do you dangle the unattainable before my eyes? You know I'm just dying to go ... but I've taken on another job ... and there are plenty without me. I won't butt in——"
"Will you go if you're asked for?"
"If I'm asked for!" Mummy repeated the words scornfully. "Of course I'd go."
Robin looked up from his temple.