And his father, failing away beneath his eyes like Hamlet’s father’s spirit, spoke already from underground.
“Swear!”
“I swear!”
“Swear!”
“I swear it, father!”
There was a faint moan, almost of luxury, the luxury of one who sinks out of all pain and all anxiety into that perfect sleep which Socrates pronounced the richest pleasure even of the Persian kings.
Keith thought he saw his father smile; thought he read upon his lips the playful pet name he had seen and heard there, when as a child he saw his father praising his mother tenderly:
“Patty? Pattikins? pretty, pretty Pattikins?”
Then the lips ceased to beat together, and parted in the final yawn that ends the boredom of this life.