The boy put out his hand and began playing with the bracelets on Katherine's wrists. He kept his eyes fixed on them as he fingered them.
"He told me I was very strong and well made—except, of course, for it. And that I was not to imagine myself ill or invalidy, because I'm really less ill than most people, you know. And—he said—you won't think me foolish, mother, if I tell you?—he said I was a very handsome fellow."
Richard glanced up quickly, while his colour deepened.
"Am I really handsome?" he asked.
Katherine smiled at him.
"Yes, you are very handsome, Dickie. You have always been that. You were a beautiful baby, a beautiful little child. And now, every day you grow more like your father. I can't quite talk about him, my dear—but ask Uncle Roger, ask Marie de Mirancourt what he was when she knew him first."
The boy's face flashed back her smile, as the sea does the sunlight.
"Oh! I say, but that's good news," he said. He lay quite still on his back for a little while, thinking about it.
"That seems to give one a shove, you know," he remarked presently. Then he fell to playing with her bracelets again. "After all, I've got a good many shoves to-day, mother. Dr. Knott's a regular champion shover. He told me about a number of people he'd known who had got smashed up somehow, or who'd always had something wrong, you know—and how they'd put a good face on it and hadn't let it interfere, but had done things just the same. And he told me I'd just got to be plucky—he knew I could if I tried—and not let it interfere either. He told me I mustn't be soft, or lazy, because doing things is more difficult for me than for other people. But that I'd just got to put my back into it, and go in and win. And I told him I would—and you'll help me, mummy, won't you?"
"Yes, darling, yes," Lady Calmady said.