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“How do you do — Henry,” said Willoughby. His voice cracked. He tried again. “I am very much obliged to you for seeing me.”

“You may sit down,” said Henry. “That one is the best.” He waited until the man had crossed the room and taken the chair, a large, old, leather-covered one by the fire, and then he himself, with great deliberation, sat down upon the window-seat, at a distance of some eight feet, and folded his hands upon his knee. “Papa is going to stay. I asked him to. I hope that is all right.”

“Perfectly right.”

“He will not say anything. He said he would only sit.”

The Colonel had, in fact, seated himself at the desk, in the far corner, with his back half turned, and a book open before him which he was not reading. He did not look up. Neither of the other two glanced at him; and in the small warm room, with the tick of the clock, there fell a silence so complete and so painful that Willoughby thought he could have heard the blood in his own ears.

It was Henry who broke it.

“I liked your kite,” said Henry.

“My —”

“The green one. At the pond. The one that got into a tangle with mine.” A faint colour was creeping into his cheeks. “I thought it was a very fine one. I should have liked to have looked at it properly. I thought the boy who had it was rather good at the string.”

There was a pause.

“That was Charles,” said Willoughby, with an effort. “He is seven. He is —” He put out a hand and let it fall. “He is extremely proud of that kite. He made the tail himself, out of a petticoat of his mother’s, and was severely reprimanded. We call him the Captain.”

“Does he like ducks?”

“He is very fond of them. He tried to ride one last summer.”

Henry’s mouth twitched. It was a small and quite helpless movement; and Willoughby, looking at it, felt his own mouth begin, without permission, to answer it. It was a queer sensation. It was as though he was looking, from a great height, into a very clear pool, and had seen his own face swim up out of it, twenty years younger.

“And your daughter?” said Henry.

“Madeline. She is five. She has a great deal to say and says it with a straight face. She said, at the pond —” He checked himself. “She said that you had my face. I told her that she was mistaken.”

“Why?”

“Because I was afraid.”

He had not meant to say it. It came out of him quite plain, in a low, uneven voice, and he heard it, and did not take it back. He leaned forward in the leather chair with his elbows on his knees, and looked at his hands, which were shaking; and he said, in the tone of a man who has been carrying something for a very long time and has found a place to set it down:

“I was afraid of a great many things. I have been afraid since the day you were born. I have never been very good at being afraid; it is a weakness of my character, and I have generally got out of it by not thinking. I thought I should like to see you that morning in the park. I thought, I can hardly tell you what I thought. I stood behind a thorn-bush, with my hat over my eyes, and told my daughter that you did not look like me.” He looked up. “I am not going to make excuses for it. I could think of a hundred, and every one would be a lie. I did not come to you before now, because I was a coward, and it was easy. That is all. It was a great deal easier than coming.”

Henry considered this. He did it thoroughly, with his brows drawn together, and his lower lip caught in his teeth, as though the sentence were a rather difficult piece of Latin that he meant to construe correctly. He did not look away.

“Papa says that most harm is done by frightened people.” He stopped. “Uncle Edward says that being angry is often a way of not asking why. I have asked. I think that I am not angry. I thought I might be.”

Willoughby did not speak. He had put a hand across his eyes.

“You need not do that,” said Henry, in some distress. “Please. I did not mean to make you — it is only that I think it is better to say what one thinks. Mamma says so.” He got down from the window-seat, and crossed the carpet, and stood before the leather chair, with his hands behind him, and a small, worried frown; and then, after a moment, with the air of a person performing a very difficult duty, he put out one hand, and laid it, quite lightly, upon the other’s knee. “You look as if you were going to be ill,” said Henry. “Would you like some water? There is a jug.”

“I am —” Willoughby took his hand from his face. He was laughing, in a helpless, unsteady, wet-eyed way, and there was nothing in the world that he could do about it. “No. Thank you. I am perfectly well. You are — you are the most extraordinary child I ever met.”

Henry hesitated. “I have got some questions, if that is all right. I wrote them down, but I have lost the paper.”

“Ask anything you like.”

“Did you like my mother?”

Willoughby was silent for some time.

“I did,” said he at last, slowly, as if he were putting each word upon a scale. “I think I liked her very much. She was very young, and a good deal too trusting, and she laughed at everything I said. I was young, and I thought that was all there was. I did not know how to look after a person. I did not know that it was a thing that one had to learn.” He paused. “She had a way of furrowing her brows when she was going to say something she was not sure of, and then looking up. You have it. You did it, just now.”