. . We'll go off abroad
somewhere. And I'll make him fat and happy."
Then his father suddenly woke up, with a start and a cry: "Where am
I?" . . . Then he suddenly saw Martin. "Martin," he said, smiling.
Martin smiled back and then began at once: "Father, this isn't true
about Thurston, is it?"
He saw, as he had often done before, that his father had to call
himself up from some world of vision before he could realise even
his surroundings. Martin he recognised intuitively with the
recognition of the spirit, but he seemed to take in the details of
the room slowly, one by one, as though blinded by the light.
"Ah--I've been dreaming," he said, still smiling at Martin
helplessly and almost timidly. "I'm so tired these days--suddenly--I
usen't to be . . ." He put his hand to his forehead, then laid it on
Martin's knee, and the strength and warmth of that seemed suddenly
to fill him with vigour.
"You're never tired, are you?" he asked as a child might ask an
elder.
"Very seldom," answered Martin, "I say, father, what is all this
about Thurston?"
"Thurston . . . Why, what's he been doing?"
"He says he's engaged to Amy.
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