But he could have married if he had wanted to. At least he supposed he could; there were a great many unattached females in the district, and they showed no signs of disliking him.
A devoted mother?
But what greater devotion could a mother have given him than Aunt Lin provided; dear doting Aunt Lin.
Riches?
What had he ever wanted that he could not buy? And if that wasn't riches he didn't know what was.
An exciting life?
But he had never wanted excitement. No greater excitement, that is, than was provided by a day's hunting or being all-square at the sixteenth.
Then what?
Why the "This is all you are ever going to have" thought?
Perhaps, he thought, sitting staring at the blue plate where the biscuits had been, it was just that Childhood's attitude of something-wonderful-tomorrow persisted subconsciously in a man as long as it was capable of realisation, and it was only after forty, when it became unlikely of fulfilment, that it obtruded itself into conscious thought; a lost piece of childhood crying for attention.