People have laughed at me and have not understood; and so perhaps I had better try to explain.
It has nothing to do with watch chains. In fact, a man with anything much in the way of a watch chain cannot very easily have it. Of course, it never goes with vulgarity. I only mention watch chain at all in connection with it because there is always a certain dignity about the chest of the man who has got it. Athletics will not give it, and yet there is something about the set of the shoulders and the build of the breast of a man with personality that makes a woman feel that his arms would shelter her better than any other arms in the world, and that to be the chosen love of such a Man would be the greatest honour and delight that life could give.
My Yeogh Wough has got this charm. I can't describe it exactly, but I know at half a mile's distance when a man has got it. I know directly I go into a church if any man of the congregation has it. And he, my boy, had it from the time when he was a few months old—as was testified to by the fact that a millionaire's wife who hated children asked that he might be allowed to be downstairs when she was calling on me, because, she said:
"He's beautiful. He's not like an ordinary child. There's something about him that draws me."
That seems only to have happened about a year ago, too. And now that millionaire's wife is a peeress and my Yeogh Wough is just twenty, is a lieutenant and an adjutant, and is coming home to-day on six days' leave!
To-day? The day is already gone. It must be a quarter to ten by now and I dare not think of what the dinner must be like, or the cook's temper. If she hadn't known him and worshipped him ever since he was little, she would be in an unmanageable rage. I am beginning almost to be a little anxious, because this is his second leave and I am a believer in Compensation. In this world one never gets a good thing twice and the bolts of fate always fall from the bluest skies.
But I will shut these gleams of fear away from me. The room door will be pushed open presently and he will come in with his gay, firm step and his charming smile.
His smile has always had something surprising about it, because his eyes are so sad.
My Yeogh Wough!