“He’s my brother, darling.”
“Oh, I see. I suppose you are bound in a kind of way to think him funny then—you like him in a way.”
“Very much.”
“Aunt Elsie doesn’t.”
“She has never seen him.”
“She jolly well doesn’t want to either.”
“Dick, darling, you will take care of Diana, won’t you?” said his mother, changing the subject: it was so difficult to keep to any subject with the good-bye looming in the near distance.
Any one who says good-bye to the child she loves for a long time (and a year to a mother is an eternity) drinks deep of the cup of self-sacrifice. Sibyl’s one thought was that Dick should not know what she was suffering. Of course he knew: but if it were her business—as mother—to bridge the distance across the sea, to talk of the near days when they should be together again, it was his—as son—to pretend he believed her. He assured her it was no distance: he didn’t mind: it happened to lots of boys: it was all right.
“You will take care of Diana?” she repeated—readjusting the distance.
“Yes, rather; you don’t want her to marry while you’re away, I suppose?—because I don’t quite see how I should manage that.”