And
I'm tired: you don't know how tired, and try as I may I feel that all
the time it is no use. My mother is slipping, slipping away."
"But, my dear, no wonder you are tired," she said. "Michael, can't
anybody help? It isn't right you should do everything."
He shook his head, smiling.
"They can't help," he said. "I'm the only person who can help her. And
I--"
He stood up, bracing mind and body.
"And I'm so brutally proud of it," he said. "She wants me. Well, that's
a lot for a son to be able to say. Sylvia, I would give anything to keep
her."
Still he was not thinking of her, and knowing that, she came close
to him and put her arm in his. She longed to give him some feeling of
comradeship. She could be sisterly to him over this without suggesting
to him what she could not be to him. Her instinct had divined right,
and she felt the answering pressure of his elbow that acknowledged her
sympathy, welcomed it, and thought no more about it.
"You are giving everything to keep her," she said. "You are giving
yourself. What further gift is there, Michael?"
He kept her arm close pressed by him, and she knew by the frankness of
that holding caress he was thinking of her still either not at all, or,
she hoped, as a comrade who could perhaps be of assistance to courage
and clear-sightedness in difficult hours.
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