Lady Lane's face, reflected in the mirror, was passive and incurious.
"There was some report in one of the papers, I believe," she explained. "I didn't see it myself."
He volunteered nothing, and his mother looked indifferently round the room, now exploring with her foot a shabby place in the carpet, now rising to hook a sagging length of curtain to its ring. She had come into his room to receive confidences and to help him; his moodiness did not invite congratulations and was troubling her.
"I wonder if I shall ever remember to bring some more shirts down here," he mused. "I've three, four, five that I'll give you for your bandage-class."
"I'll take them gratefully," she answered. There was a pause in which he pushed a drawer home, selected a handkerchief and turned off the light over his dressing-table; in another minute they would be downstairs, and the opportunity would be gone. She slipped her arm through his and walked to the door. "There's nothing worrying you, is there, Eric?"
"I'm afraid I've rather a faculty for letting things worry me," he laughed. "If one didn't always have to work against time, at high pressure——"
His mother was not deceived into thinking that work had anything to do with his mood.
"No new worries?" she suggested. "The last month or two … You're not looking well; that's why I asked. If you ever feel there's anything I can do …"
The subject was dismissed as she opened the door. She was glad that she had given him no opportunity of a denial, for Eric had always told her the truth, hitherto.
He went to bed early and fell asleep at once after the restlessness of the last two nights. When he felt his way back to wakefulness in the morning, there was a subconscious sense that something important had happened; a moment later he remembered with a pang that he and Barbara had said good-bye.