“Oh yes,” said Val, relieved. He drew a step back, with a sense of having escaped. “I don’t really mind, you know, at all,” he said; “it was nothing but a joke. But I’ll come again with pleasure. I say, what have you done to that carving, Brown?” How glad Val was to get away from her touch, and from her intent eyes! and yet he did not want to go away. He hastened to the other end of the room with Dick, who was glad also to find that the perplexing interview was at an end, and got out his bit of carving with great relief. Val stood for a long time (as they all thought) side by side with the other, laying their heads together, the light locks and the dark--talking both together, as boys do; and felt himself calm down, but with a sense that something strange had happened to him, something more than he could understand. The mother sat down on her chair, her limbs no longer able to sustain her. She was glad, too, that it was over--glad and sad, and so shaken with conflicting emotions, that she scarcely knew what was going on. Her heart sounded in her ears like great waves; and through a strange mist in her eyes, and the gathering twilight, she saw vaguely, dimly, the two beside her. Oh, if she could but have put her arms round them and kissed them both together! But she could not. She sat down silent among the shadows, a shadow herself, against the evening light, and saw them in a mist, and held her peace. “You did not tell me your mother was a lady,” said Val, as the two went back together through the soft dusk to the river-side. “I never knew it,” said wondering Dick; “I never thought it--till to-night.” “Ah, but I am sure of it,” said Val. “I thought you couldn’t be a cad, Brown, or I should not have taken to you like this. She’s a lady, sure enough; and what’s more,” he added, with an embarrassed laugh, “I feel as if I had known her somewhere--before--I suppose, before I was born!” CHAPTER XIX.