In a few years Michael took his place, as accepted as Helen had always been--fearless, philosophical, and fairly good-looking. At six, he wished to know why he could not call her “Mummy,” as other boys called their mothers. She explained that she was only his auntie, and that aunties were not quite the same as mummies, but that, if it gave him pleasure, he might call her “Mummy” at bedtime, for a pet-name between themselves. Michael kept his secret most loyally, but Helen, as usual, explained the fact to her friends; which when Michael heard, he raged. “Why did you tell? _Why_ did you tell?” came at the end of the storm. “Because it’s always best to tell the truth,” Helen answered, her arm round him as he shook in his cot. “All right, but when the troof’s ugly I don’t think it’s nice.” “Don’t you, dear?” “No, I don’t, and”--she felt the small body stiffen--“now you’ve told, I won’t call you ‘Mummy’ any more--not even at bedtimes.” “But isn’t that rather unkind?” said Helen, softly. “I don’t care! I don’t care! You’ve hurted me in my insides and I’ll hurt you back. I’ll hurt you as long as I live!” “Don’t, oh, don’t talk like that, dear! You don’t know what----” “I will! And when I’m dead I’ll hurt you worse!” “Thank goodness, I shall be dead long before you, darling.” “Huh! Emma says, ‘’Never know your luck.’” (Michael had been talking to Helen’s elderly, flat-faced maid.) “Lots of little boys die quite soon. So’ll I. _Then_ you’ll see!” Helen caught her breath and moved towards the door, but the wail of “Mummy! Mummy!” drew her back again, and the two wept together. * * * * * At ten years old, after two terms at a prep. school, something or somebody gave him the idea that his civil status was not quite regular. He attacked Helen on the subject, breaking down her stammered defences with the family directness. “’Don’t believe a word of it,” he said, cheerily, at the end. “People wouldn’t have talked like they did if my people had been married. But don’t you bother, Auntie. I’ve found out all about my sort in English Hist’ry and the Shakespeare bits. There was William the Conqueror to begin with, and--oh, heaps more, and they all got on first-rate. ’Twon’t make any difference to you, my being _that_--will it?” “As if anything could----” she began. “All right. We won’t talk about it any more if it makes you cry.” He never mentioned the thing again of his own will, but when, two years later, he skilfully managed to have measles in the holidays, as his temperature went up to the appointed one hundred and four he muttered of nothing else, till Helen’s voice, piercing at last his delirium, reached him with assurance that nothing on earth or beyond could make any difference between them.