"And have a talk with you."
"Good. That doesn't happen often."
Addie knitted his brows, which gave him an expression of sadness:
"Don't be satirical, Father. How can I help it?"
"I'm not being satirical, my dear boy. I accept the inevitable. I've been accepting it now for five days. After dinner I would come up here quietly and smoke my cigarettes in utter resignation. Of those five days, two have been windy and three have been stormy. And I sat here calmly and listened to it all."
"And ...?"
"And ... that's all. Life's an insipid business; and the older I grow the more insipid I find it. I don't philosophize about it very much. I never did, you know.... But I do sometimes think, nowadays, what a rotten thing life is, with all its changes. At least, I should have been glad to let it remain as it was...."
"How, Daddy?"
"As it used to be when you were a small boy. I have gradually come to lose you entirely ... and I have so little, apart from you."
"Oh, nonsense!"