Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/376

 "A mother sends out spies to survey Canaan."

"Oh,—I am not a woman of Canaan. Why should I let your son hurt himself in hurting me? The problem is so simple if you remove it from social interference."

"Can one?"

"All social affairs imply compromise? Yes, and in tke end a sense of humour."

Sorrell looked at her kindly.

"Kit is too much in love to have a sense of humour."

She suffered him to see her passionate seriousness.

"And I—cared sufficiently—to suffer from a sense of responsibility. He is rather a dear boy. He knows so little of the real me,—thinks I should be so easy. I shouldn't. I'm a temperamental devil."

"And you—know so much more of him."

"Perhaps. And you,—after all these years, mother and father in one? Yes, he has talked a good deal. You have always been splendid to him. He is so young still, so lovably young, always will be—perhaps. And I was born old, like one of Shaw's young women out of an egg. I am keen on my work."

She saw consent in Sorrell's eyes.

"One's job. I know. And your job is not a childish one. Neither is Kit's. But in his affections—he is thorough."

"I could be thorough. Loving one's job need not mean. If Kit understood. I can't lie to him, pretend that marriage should be a complete surrender. It might take him years to learn that,—and meanwhile—wreckage."

"How did you learn it?"

"Oh, I don't know. Born with it. Ask the theosophists! But there it is. What is your feeling?"

Sorrell sat and stared at his hands.

"Feelings are complicated things. Kit has been my job—so to speak—all these years, and the completion of a job. Rather precious. I allow—that a woman is bound to have a hand in it."

"You are not jealous?"

"That's the unpardonable sin—in parents. I only ask for the right woman."

"And I."