He sat down and began
to write in the sand with his walking stick. He hoped she would
provoke a scene.
"What are you thinking of?" she asked at last.
"I?" he replied, feeling as if a burden were falling off his shoulders,
"I am thinking that we are getting old, mother: our innings are over,
and we have to be content with what has been. If you are of the same
mind, we'll go home by the night boat."
"I have thought so all along, old man, but I wanted to please you."
"Then come along, we'll go home. It's no longer summer, autumn is here."
They returned to the hotel, much relieved.
He was a little embarrassed on account of the prosaic ending of the
adventure, and felt an irresistible longing to justify it from a
philosophical standpoint.
"You see, mother," he said, "my lo--h'm" (the word was too strong) "my
affection for you has undergone a change in the course of time. It has
developed, broadened; at first it was centred on the individual, but
later on, on the family as a whole. It is not now you, personally,
that I love, nor is it the children, but it is the whole....
"Yes, as my uncle used to say, children are lightning conductors!"
After his philosophical explanation he became his old self again.
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