“You can take Whisket and go and stay at Claridge’s Hotel, stay there just as long as you want, and remember, if you stay after you’ve stopped wanting, I shall send John to bring you away. “I notice John is as good as a rain gauge about your feelings, and I will say for John, though he has all the faults of the English that rile me most, if he puts his foot on a wasp he gets the wasp. “Hermione will probably say it’ll kill her to have you leave her, but don’t you believe it. Hermione is so tough she can die that way 365 times in the year and start up all over again on New Year’s Day with resolutions of ill health that would weaken a hefty elephant. “People who can stand dying as often as Hermione, don’t die—not under sixty.” Elise flushed painfully, and set her delicate, weak little mouth into stiffness. It was hard not to be angry with Papa, and she had to remind herself of his tragedy in order to forgive him. Papa’s tragedy was that he had lost his only son in France and that the telegram announcing it had killed Mamma on the spot. Mamma had opposed Arnold’s going from the first, and curiously enough, Papa, who always seemed so much more fond of Arnold than Mamma ever was, hadn’t stopped it. Mamma said that as long as his country wasn’t in, why should Arnold fight? Mamma despised the English anyway. If Arnold had wanted to go in with the French, and taken a good staff appointment, not anywhere near the front, Mamma wouldn’t have minded. The French were smart and Mamma adored Paris. She said if Papa chose to back Arnold and help the French Government, they’d be sure to give Arnold just the kind of job she wanted for him, and a lovely uniform. But Papa had just come right over to England with Arnold, and done unspoken of, mysterious things for the English Government, who didn’t appreciate him, or make any fuss over any of them; and after all Papa had done, Arnold only got the plainest commission in a line regiment, and was killed before America came in. Mamma had died with the whole household round her in the hall—they had all rushed in terrified at the scream she gave when she opened the telegram. She screamed till they were all there, and then she said “My son!” like a person on the stage, and fell forward. Papa had picked her up and laid her down on the sofa without looking at her. When he did look at her, he found that she was dead. Papa never said anything at all about Mamma’s death, which showed how much he felt it. But that night when he was sitting up with Elise, who had fallen seriously ill from shock, he said to her quite cheerfully: