When the boat had disappeared, Vere lifted herself up and turned round to her mother.
“Isn’t he a jolly boy, Madre?”
“Yes,” said Hermione.
She spoke in a low voice. Her eyes were still on the sea where the boat had passed.
“Yes,” she repeated, almost as if to herself.
For the first time a little cloud went over Vere’s sensitive face.
“Madre, how horribly I must have disappointed you,” she said.
The mother did not break into protestations. She always treated her child with sincerity.
“Just for a moment, Vere,” she answered. “And then, very soon, you made me feel how much more intimate can be the relationship between a mother and a daughter than between a mother and any son.”
“Is that true, really?”