"Parleyings with Certain People: Gerard de Lairesse."
"Some day, George, when you can spare the time, I should like you to write a little memoir ..." Violet paused as the car was brought to a standstill by the tide of traffic at Hyde Park Corner. "For Sandy, when he grows up," she went on.
We were in the last week of July. It was almost my cousin's first day out of doors, and she looked frail and sadly young in her mourning. Two days earlier the world had been informed that Captain the Marquess Loring, previously reported missing, was now reported as killed. We were returning to Curzon Street after the Requiem Mass at the Oratory.
"You knew Jim so much longer than I did," she resumed. "I want Sandy to know what he was like at school and Oxford. And his friends. And how he talked, and the sort of life people led when he was alive. Sandy's world will be so different."
"And yet—it's hardly a year since the old world was blotted out," I said.
"A year ago we were all at Chepstow," she murmured. "You remember the news coming?... I think Jim was happy, but—we weren't long together, were we?"
The car slowed down and came to a standstill before Loring House.
"May I stay with you till Amy and her mother come back?" I asked.
"Please do," she answered, as she stepped out of the car. Then, as we walked upstairs to the drawing-room, "George, I never thought that death would be like this. It's so—big. I couldn't have cried if I'd wanted to. I don't feel I've lost Jim. I feel he's nearer me than ever before. I shan't see him, but he'll be there—there. And I feel I must try to do him credit: I mustn't fall out before the end. Sandy and I.... It'll be hard for Sandy with only a mother to bring him up. We shall want you to help us, George."