She stroked his hair shyly with maternal fingers. He felt the caress and his heart melted. Its sin poured out leaving him exaltedly cleansed. Yes, she understood him, the ache of repentance in his soul, the nostalgia for cleanliness that hurt him so. She understood and she was telling him so with her fingers.
"Poor boy," she whispered because he was weeping. "I'm so sorry. You won't, again? Ever? Will you?"
It was easy and exalting to confess and promise in this way, without mentioning anything by name. Just by sound.
"I'm so glad," she whispered, as if they were in church, "if I have done that for you...."
"You have," he agreed. "I feel like a ... like a dog."
Her fingers were playing over his cheek. She could be bold. A man in tears was harmless. She stood up with determination and sat down close beside him. She took his head in her hands and looking with clear understanding eyes into his, shook her head sadly.
"You need a rest," she whispered. "Here ... rest like this."
She placed his head as if he were a child on her shoulder. Keegan's heart contracted with remorse at the innocence of the gesture. Her purity was something poignant. He closed his eyes and drifted into an innocuous satisfaction. This was a realization of his hopes for purity. He recalled with bitterness the filthy embraces of the night. How superior this was, how much cleaner.
"Wait a minute," Fanny murmured, a wholesome matter-of-fact maternalism in her voice, "you lie down and rest ... like this."
She assumed the proprietory gestures remembered from her childhood when she had "played house" with little boys and girls, and guided Keegan to stretch his legs on the window seat. He grinned apologetically. Fanny sat down and placed his head in her lap, her hands gently caressing his hair.
"Now sleep," she murmured. "There's nobody in the house and you can get a good long rest."
Keegan shut his eyes. A blissful enervation stole over him. His heart felt grateful. She was like a mother might be. Everyone had a mother except him.
He had known Fanny for several months only and had never talked to her alone before. But now it seemed to him she was his oldest and most intimate friend. Because she understood. He thought of her as a companion of his better self. The warmth of her lap soothed him. Unaware, he dropped into a half doze.