"Whom do you mean by she, Sally?"
"Why, of course! Who could I mean but the girl you told me about that you think wouldn't agree with your mother?"
"I thought so. See what a mess I made of it! No, Sally, there's no such person. Now I shall have to speak the truth, and then
I shall have to go away from you, and it will all be spoiled...." But Sally interposes on the tense speech, and sound of growing determination in the doctor's voice:
"Oh no, don't—no, don't! Don't say anything that will change it from now. See how happy we are! How could it be better? I'll call you Conrad, or anything you like. Only, don't make it different."
"Very well, I won't. I promise!" The doctor calms down. "But, Sally dearest—I may say Sally dearest, mayn't I?..."
"Well, perhaps. Only you must make that do for the present."
But there is a haunting sense of the Octopus in the conscientious soul of her son, and even though he is allowed to say "Sally dearest," the burden is on him of knowing that he has been swept away in the turmoil of this whirlwind of self, and he is feeling round to say peccavi, and make amends by confession. He makes "Sally dearest" do for the moment, but captures as a set-off the hand that slips readily enough into the arm he offers for it, with a caressing other hand, before he speaks again. He renews his promise—but with such a compensation in the hand that remains at rest in his! and then continues:
"Dearest Sally, I dare say you see how it was—about mother. It was very stupid of me, and I did it very badly. I got puzzled, and lost my head."
"I thought it was a real young lady, anyhow."