“Go and play with the babies, Norah,” he said. “I want to talk to this obstinate person.”
“Now look, Mrs. Hunt,” he said, as Norah went off, rather relieved—Norah hated arguments. “You know we run this place for an ideal—a dead man’s ideal. He wanted more than anything in the world to help the war; we’re merely carrying on for him. We can only do it by helping individuals.”
“But you have done that for us. Look at Douglas—strong and fit, with one hand as good as the other. Think of what he was when he came here!”
“He may not always be fit. And if you stay here you ease his worries by benefiting his children—and saving for their future. Then, if he has the bad luck to be wounded again, his house is all ready for him.”
“I know,” she said. “And I would stay, but that there are others who need it more.”
“Well, we haven’t heard of them. Look at it another way. I am getting an old man; it worries me a good deal to think that Norah has no woman to mother her. I used to think,” he said with a sigh, “that it was worse for them to lose their own mother when they were wee things; now, I am not sure that Norah’s loss is not just beginning. It’s no small thing for her to have an influence like yours; and Norah loves you.”
Mrs. Hunt flushed.
“Indeed, I love her,” she said.
“Then stay and mother her. There are ever so many things you can teach her that I can’t: that Miss de Lisle can’t, good soul as she is. They’re not things I can put into words—but you’ll understand. I know she’s clean and wholesome right through, but you can help to mould her for womanhood. Of course, she left school far too early, but there seemed no help for it. And if—if bad news comes to us from the Front—for any of us—we can all help each other.”
Mrs. Hunt thought deeply.