hand rested gently on his father's curly hair, stroked
it gently while his father lay sleeping; and, with a sort of tenderness,
the boy thought:

"Why are you like that? How can you be like that? Why have you never
overcome that weakness, become manlier, firmer? Poor, poor Father!..."

And it was strange, but, while he disapproved, he felt his love
increase, as the love of the stronger goes out to the weaker and lesser:
the stronger the one feels, the weaker the other appears to him; and
thus the instinct is developed to protect and care for that other. And
now he remained stock-still, thinking that he had really tired his
father out, for they had ridden like mad that morning, intoxicated with
the smooth length of the roads, giddied with excessive speed.

He remained stock-still, as though he himself were a father who was
letting his tired child sleep in his arms. And, while he sat gazing at
that young face of his father's, that white forehead divided with a
sharp stripe from the blue, bronzed cheeks, there fluttered through his
vision those new thoughts, like birds that were learning to fly, those
dreams of wide prospects stretching away to dim futures at which he only
guessed as yet, because the world was so wide and life so big. And,
though these fledgling thoughts were all ignorant of the world and of
life, they fluttered to and fro, fluttered away and then back to the
nest, where they, the new-born thoughts, settled upon that greatest and
strongest and most conscious feeling, that of love for the father who
was so young that he was like a brother and so weak that he was as a
child....

CHAPTER XXXV

Constance was much alone during those days. She was even more lonely
than she had ever been in Brussels--when Van der Welcke was away about
his wines or his insurances--because this was the first time that she
had been parted from Addie. She saw her mother almost every day,
however; but, for the rest, she mostly stayed at home, just as she had
very often stayed at home in Brussels. A gentle melancholy had come upon
her, after her fits of depression, a melancholy that impelled her to be
much at home and much by herself. She was a stay-at-home woman: her
house had the well-tended and attractive and comfortable appearance of a
house which is loved by its occupant with the unadventurous feeling that
home is the safest place. She busied herself in the mornings in a quiet
way, did her housekeeping, gave her orde