Page 376 - sons-and-lovers

then—it should be all right. He’s as good as she.’
‘So you don’t mind?’
‘I would NEVER have let a daughter of mine marry a
man I didn’t FEEL to be genuine through and through. And
yet, there’s a gap now she’s gone.’
They were both miserable, and wanted her back again. It
seemed to Paul his mother looked lonely, in her new black
silk blouse with its bit of white trimming.
‘At any rate, mother, I s’ll never marry,’ he said.
‘Ay, they all say that, my lad. You’ve not met the one yet.
Only wait a year or two.’
‘But I shan’t marry, mother. I shall live with you, and
we’ll have a servant.’
‘Ay, my lad, it’s easy to talk. We’ll see when the time
comes.’
‘What time? I’m nearly twenty-three.’
‘Yes, you’re not one that would marry young. But in three
years’ time—-‘
‘I shall be with you just the same.’
‘We’ll see, my boy, we’ll see.’
‘But you don’t want me to marry?’
‘I shouldn’t like to think of you going through your life
without anybody to care for you and do—no.’
‘And you think I ought to marry?’
‘Sooner or later every man ought.’
‘But you’d rather it were later.’
‘It would be hard—and very hard. It’s as they say:
‘A son’s my son till he takes him a wife,
But my daughter’s my daughter the whole of her life.’’