"But--if there's anything in it--why can't I see it as well as you and Veronica? After all, I'm their mother."
"Perhaps that's why it takes you longer, Mummy. You think of their bodies more than we do, because they were part of your body. Their souls, or whatever it is, aren't as real to you just at first."
"I see," said Frances, bitterly. "You've only got to be a mother, and give your children your flesh and blood, to be sure of their souls going from you and somebody else getting them."
"That's the price you pay for being mothers."
"Was Frank's soul ever more real to you, Dorothy?"
"Yes. It was once--for just one minute. The night he went away. That's another queer thing that happened."
"It didn't satisfy you, darling, did it?"
"Of course it didn't satisfy me. I want more and more of it. Not just flashes."
"You say it's the price we pay for being mothers. Yet if Veronica had had a child--"
"You needn't be so sorry for Veronica."