her cheeks blazing with shame.

"It's not anything wrong, mamma?"

"No, Geoff, oh no, my darling! they say not: if only you don't mind."

The brave little eyes blinked and twinkled to get rid of unwelcome
tears. He put his hand upon her head and stroked it, as if it had been
she that was the child. "I do mind," he said. She thought, as she felt
the little hand upon her head, that the boy was about to call upon
her for a supreme sacrifice; but for a moment there was nothing more.
Afterwards he repulsed her a little, very slightly, but yet it was a
repulse. "I suppose," he said, "it cannot be helped, mamma? My feet are
quite warm now, and I'll go to bed."

"Geoff, is that all you have got to say to me? It can make no difference,
my darling, no difference. Oh, Geoff, my own boy, you will always be my
first----"

Would he, could he be her first thought? She paused, conscience-stricken,
raising for the first time her eyes to his. But a child does not catch
such an unconscious admission. He took no notice of it. His chief object,
for the moment, was not to cry, which he felt would be beneath his
dignity. His little heart was all forlorn. He had no clear idea of what
it was, or of what was going to happen, but only a vague certainty that
mamma and Theo were to stand more and more together, and that he was
"out of it." He could not talk of grown-up things like them; he would
be sent to play as he had been this morning. He who had been companion,
counsellor, everything to her, he would be sent to play. The dreary
future seemed all summed up in that. He slid out of her arms with his
little bare feet on the carpet, flinging the fur cloak from him. "I was
a little cold because the door was open, but I'm quite warm now, and I'm
sleepy too. And it's long, long past bedtime, don't you think, mamma? I
wonder if I was ever as late before?"

He looked at her when he asked that question, and suddenly before them
both, a little vague and confused to the child, to her clear as if
yesterday, came the picture of that night when Geoff and she had watched
together, he at her feet, curled into her dress, while his father lay
dying. Oh, _he_ had no right to reproach her, no right! and yet the
pale, awful face on the pillow, living, yet already wrapt in the majesty
of death, rose up before her. She gave a great cry and clasped Geoff in
her arms. She was still kneeling, and his slight little white figure
swayed and trembled with the sudden w