down her face.

Mr. Britling presently went on with the talk. "For me it came all at
once, without a doubt or a hope. I hoped until the last that nothing
would touch Hugh. And then it was like a black shutter falling--in an
instant...."

He considered. "Hugh, too, seems just round the corner at times. But at
times, it's a blank place....

"At times," said Mr. Britling, "I feel nothing but astonishment. The
whole thing becomes incredible. Just as for weeks after the war began I
couldn't believe that a big modern nation could really go to
war--seriously--with its whole heart.... And they have killed Teddy and
Hugh....

"They have killed millions. Millions--who had fathers and mothers and
wives and sweethearts...."

Section 8

"Somehow I can't talk about this to Edith. It is ridiculous, I know. But
in some way I can't.... It isn't fair to her. If I could, I would....
Quite soon after we were married I ceased to talk to her. I mean talking
really and simply--as I do to you. And it's never come back. I don't
know why.... And particularly I can't talk to her of Hugh.... Little
things, little shadows of criticism, but enough to make it
impossible.... And I go about thinking about Hugh, and what has happened
to him sometimes... as though I was stifling."

Letty compared her case.

"I don't want to talk about Teddy--not a word."

"That's queer.... But perhaps--a son is different. Now I come to think
of it--I've never talked of Mary.... Not to any one ever. I've never
thought of that before. But I haven't. I couldn't. No. Losing a lover,
that's a thing for oneself. I've been through that, you see. But a
son's more outside you. Altogether. And more your own making. It's not
losing a thing _in_ you; it's losing a hope and a pride.... Once when I
was a little boy I did a drawing very carefully. It took me a long
time.... And a big boy tore it up. For no particular reason. Just out of
cruelty.... That--that was exactly like losing Hugh...."

Letty reflected.

"No," she confessed, "I'm more selfish than that."

"It isn't selfish," said Mr. Britling. "But it's a different thing. It's
less intimate, and more personally important."

"I have just thought, 'He's gone. He's gone.' Sometimes, do you know, I
have felt quite angry with him. Why need he have gone--so soon?"

Mr. Britling nodded understandingly.

"I'm not angry. I'm not depressed. I'm just bitterly hurt by the ending
of something I had hoped to watch--alw