“Did you say thank-you to Uncle Justin when you said good-night?” “Don’t like Uncle Justin.” Timothy wriggled from under the towel. “Oh, Timothy, when he brought you that lovely motor-car!” “Don’t like old motor-car. Want to see the birds in Uncle Justin’s room.” “_What_, my duck?” “Birds sitting on eggs in Uncle Justin’s room. Grannie told me, only they’re locked up till Uncle Justin comes home.” “Grannie said that? Are you sure, Timmy?” “Yes, and said Uncle Justin would show me. And Uncle Justin wouldn’t. Said—said—Uncle Justin said——” “Said what, Timothy?” Timothy scowled adorably. “Don’t like Uncle Justin. Where’s my motor-car?” “But Timothy——” “Want my motor-car.” And Laura, having been acquainted with that particular tone in the Cloud voice for some thirteen years, gave him his motor-car and said no more. But she went down to dinner and Justin with bright eyes and a flushed face, and had little to say as she sat thinking across to him over the pot of daffodils. ‘So—so you never told your mother! But you tell her everything! It was decent of you—it was good of you—not to tell your mother....’ And then, with such a pang of pride in him, ‘It was like you. Any one else——It was awfully good of you not to tell your mother.’... And that evening, as they came down from Mrs. Cloud’s room (Mrs. Cloud hoped to get up the next day) she found herself, because that tale of Timothy’s had given her the strangest courage, able to find the right words, the right silences, able to unlock him at last. And he spoke—to the room, to the fire, to his own hands, rather than to her—of certain things daily seen and heard and endured: spoke with a flatness of tone, a baldness of phrase, that, to her at least, underlined his facts as no eloquence could have done. He doled out horror like a school-marm teaching dull children to read. ‘The cat ate the rat.’ “Stuck him up against a wall and shot him.” “Wiped out forty——” “And after that there wasn’t much Fritz left!” And, urged on as it were, by her quivering receptiveness, spoke finally of experiences, not (she thanked God) his own, yet of his own first-hand knowledge: and found no other way to tell her than with a hard stare, in direct and brutal sentences, as if he thought— ‘Well, if it comes to that, why shouldn’t you know? Do you good—you home people!’ She knew that his contempt was unconscious, impersonal; that she had no right to wince at it; nevertheless, it hurt. She wanted to say, ‘It’s not fair. I do understand. As if I wouldn’t cut off my hands to be there instead of you! It’s you who’ll never understand,’ and shook off that egotism to listen to him again, and had her reward when he ended, quite naturally and simply, in turning from the subject at last with that air of relief for which she had worked and hoped, with a comfortable relaxation of his whole body, and a smile that told her that he was feeling better and was ready to be amused.