Now there was a lot of light. She could see the bird's-wing brilliance of his hair, the faint bluish bloom about his lips, that showed he had not shaved since morning, the radiance of his eyes and the flush on his cheeks that had come of his enjoyed ride through the cold moony air. The queer things men were, with their useless, inordinate, disgusting yet somehow magnificent growth of hair on their faces, and their capacity for excitements that have nothing to do with emotion.... He came and stood beside her and slipped his arm round her waist and murmured, "Well, Marion?" and laughed. Always he had loved calling her that, ever since as a little boy he had found her full name written in an old book and had run to her, crying, "Is that really your lovely name?" Even more than by the name itself had he been pleased by the way it was written, squintwise across the page and in a round hand, exactly as he himself was then writing his own name in his first school books. It made him see his mother as a little girl, and helped him to dream his favourite dream that he and she were just the same age and could go to school and play games together. It still gave him an inexplicable glow of pleasure, the memory of that brownish signature staggering across the flyleaf of "Jessica's First Prayer." She perceived that he was violently excited at coming back to her, but she took the toast from under the grill, buttered it, set it on the warm plate, and poured the eggs on it with an ironical air of absorption. These two went very carefully and mocked each other perpetually so that the gods should not overhear and be jealous. "Now, eat it while it's hot!" she said, holding out the plate. He put it down on the kitchen table and gathered her into his arms. "Well, mother?" he murmured, looking down at her, worshipping her. "Oh, my boy," she whispered, "you've lost your brown, up there in Scotland." "Oh, I'm all right. But you?" "As well as well can be." "But, mother dear, you look as if you'd been having those bad dreams." "No, I've had none, none at all." "That means not too many. Does it?" They kissed, and he said tenderly yet harshly: "Roger hasn't been bothering you?" "Ah, the poor thing, don't speak of him like that," she said. "No, but I've not heard from him for six weeks. Not even at Christmas. I'm a little anxious. But it may be all right. You remember last Christmas there was a time when he didn't write. I expect it'll be all right." But with her eyes she abandoned herself to fear, so that he should soothe her and stroke her hands with his, which were trembling in spite of their strength because he was so glad to see her.