Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/274

 Do you want to?

No, mama.

Then you don't have to.

On the stairs she re-encountered Cupid.

I forgot to tell you, Cupid, she said, that I'm sailing on the twenty-third.

But that's two days before Christmas. You won't be here with the boys on Christmas day.

No, Cupid. I no longer believe in Santa Claus, and you can amuse the boys. There is too much mothering going on in the world. What our boys need—what all boys need—is independence. As she spoke she realized that it was curiously ironic that Esmé and Basil should prefer her to Cupid, who worried about them constantly.

Cupid did not argue. He took her tone: When are you coming back?

I don't know.

The little man groaned. Campaspe, he pleaded, we can't go on living like this. Will it always be like this?

Yes, Cupid if you wish. Always. I am, content. You are free, of course, to do what you like. . . . . Yes, it will always be like this, unless you change it. . . . She passed him and continued on her way upstairs.

Before dinner they all met again under the lamps in the drawing-room. Cupid was reading This Freedom. The boys were playing a game of halma. Campaspe felt a certain amount of pride in contem-