The dinner—all the dishes that Giles specially loved—was finished. With his arm round his mother’s waist and a cigar in the corner of his mouth, he led her into the warm comfort of the white-paneled drawing-room.
“You won’t mind my smoking in here to-night, mater?”
“My dear boy!”
They sat in silence, watching the red glow of the log fire. Suddenly Giles said:
“I say, mater, do you know an awfully rum thing Geddes told me?”
His mother looked up.
“I think perhaps I know. Do you mean in the—cemetery?”
Giles nodded, puffing at his cigar in little nervous inhalations.
“Yes. I knew. I saw it, of course. I’ve sat and wondered.”