But the largest share of credit in restoring the latter to a more normal and less highly strung condition was due to Tim, who gravitated towards her with the facility common to natural man when he finds himself for any length of time under the same roof with an attractive young person of the opposite sex. He had an engaging habit of appearing at the door of Sara's sitting-room with an ingratiating: “I say, may I come in for a yarn?” And, upon receiving permission, he would establish himself on the hearth-rug at her feet and proceed to prattle to her about his own affairs, much as a brother might have done to a favourite sister, and with an equal assurance that his confidences would be met with sympathetic interest.
“What are you going to do with yourself, Tim?” asked Sara one day, as he sprawled in blissful indolence on the great bearskin in front of her fire, pulling happily at a beloved old pipe.
“Do with myself?” he repeated. “What do you mean? I'm doing very comfortably just at present”—glancing round him appreciatively.
“I mean—what are you going to be? Aren't you going to enter any profession?”
Tim sat up suddenly, removing his pipe from his mouth.
“No,” he said shortly.
“But why not? You can't slack about here for ever, doing nothing. I should have thought you would have gone into the Army, like your father.”
His blue eyes hardened.
“That's what I wanted to do,” he said gruffly. “But the mother wouldn't hear of it.”
Sara could sense the pain in his suddenly roughened tones.