“Her mother—that sacred name.”
“Her mother is abroad.”
“Oh, really, I see, of course. We never thought of that. A man alone with a child always suggests—”
“What?” He was really interested. How he appeared to others was a subject that always held him.
“A widower—bereavement.”
“Oh, no, I’m not a widower, far from it—”
The mother found the sun too hot, she must go; she rose, called to her daughter, and they went on, little knowing that, although they had not found a widower, they had found a bachelor, which is in some ways a far better thing—
“Nice lady,” said Shan’t decisively, pouring sand from her spade on to Marcus’s shoes.
“What did she talk about?” he asked.
“Cwabs.”