But his mother was "broad-minded." When "she sees a woman obviously happy, she feels that she probably has a lover." She "wouldn't want all the best" of her son's life. "She knows I don't mean to marry, and she knows also that no man goes very far without a woman in his life."
And, not "necessarily, in the background. I can imagine a very great friendship developing into something more passionate while one was young and impulsive, and then slipping
gradually back into a wonderful comradeship."
"And," he added, "I should never marry a woman who would mind my having friends!"
All this he tells Corona—"very quietly and simply"; and then, "kissing her face swiftly, hotly, . . . till she bit him"; with incredible naivete, explains that he had talked about her with his mother—"She feels I should be safe with you" and "she would be a good friend to my mistress."
In her first blaze of anger and scorn Corona spits out: "I suppose Sir Henry is your mother's lover"; and the boy cries, "No, he is not! How dare you suggest it? My mother is much too fine a woman to have a lover. She never had one and never will have."
This is the truth none can escape: the one answer possible for any decent boy: the inspiration of all the youth of all ages, who have made for us a fair world, illumined by faith, courage, and hope.