"But I shan't marry, mother. I shall live with you, and we'll have a servant."
"Ay, my lad, it's easy to talk. We'll see when the time comes."
"Yes, you're not one that would marry young. But in three years' time----"
"I shouldn't like to think of you going through your life without anybody to care for you and do--no."
"It would be hard--and very hard. It's as they say:
"'A son's my son till he takes him a wife, But my daughter's my daughter the whole of her life.'"
"And you think I'd let a wife take me from you?"
"Well, you wouldn't ask her to marry your mother as well as you," Mrs. Morel smiled.
"She could do what she liked; she wouldn't have to interfere."
"She wouldn't--till she'd got you--and then you'd see."
"I never will see. I'll never marry while I've got you--I won't."
"But I shouldn't like to leave you with nobody, my boy," she cried.
"You're not going to leave me. What are you? Fifty-three! I'll give you till seventy-five. There you are, I'm fat and forty-four. Then I'll marry a staid body. See!"
"And we'll have a pretty house, you and me, and a servant, and it'll be just all right. I s'll perhaps be rich with my painting."
"And then you s'll have a pony-carriage. See yourself--a little Queen Victoria trotting round."
He kissed her and went. His plans for the future were always the same.
Mrs. Morel sat brooding--about her daughter, about Paul, about Arthur. She fretted at losing Annie. The family was very closely bound. And she felt she _must_ live now, to be with her children. Life was so rich for her. Paul wanted her, and so did Arthur. Arthur never knew how deeply he loved her. He was a creature of the moment. Never yet had he been forced to realize himself. The army had disciplined his body, but not his soul. He was in perfect health and very handsome. His dark, vigorous hair sat close to his smallish head. There was something childish about his nose, something almost girlish about his dark blue eyes. But he had the full red mouth of a man under his brown moustache, and his jaw was strong. It was his father's mouth; it was the nose and eyes of her own mother's people--good-looking, weak-principled folk. Mrs. Morel was anxious about him. Once he had really run the rig he was safe. But how far would he go?