Their earlier encounters became rather misty in his memory; they occurred at various hotels in Seagate.  Afterwards he would go, first taken by a governess, and later going alone, to Charing Cross, where he would be met, in earlier times by a maid and afterwards by a deferential manservant who called him “Sir,” and conveyed, sometimes in a hansom cab and later in a smart brougham, by Trafalgar Square, Lower Regent Street, Piccadilly, and streets of increasing wealth and sublimity to Sir Godfrey’s house in Desborough Street.  Very naturally he fell into thinking of these discreet and well-governed West End streets as a part of his mother’s atmosphere.

The house had a dignified portico, and always before he had got down to the pavement the door opened agreeably and a second respectful manservant stood ready.  Then came the large hall, with its noiseless carpets and great Chinese jars, its lacquered cabinets and the wide staircase, and floating down the wide staircase, impatient to greet him, light and shining as a flower petal, sweet and welcoming, radiating a joyfulness as cool and clear as a dewy morning, came his mother.  “Well, little man, my son,” she would cry in her happy singing voice, “Well?”

So he thought she must always be, but indeed these meetings meant very much to her, she dressed for them and staged them, she perceived the bright advantages of her rarity and she was quite determined to have her son when the time came to possess him.  She kissed him but not oppressively, she caressed him cleverly; it was only on these rare occasions that he was ever kissed or caressed, and she talked to his shy boyishness until it felt a more spirited variety of manhood.  “What have you been doing?” she asked, “since I saw you last.”

She never said he had grown, but she told him he looked tall; and though the tea was a marvellous display it was never an obtrusive tea, it wasn’t poked at a fellow; a various plenty flowed well within reach of one’s arm, like an agreeable accompaniment to their conversation.

“What have you done?  All sorts of brave things?  Do you swim now?  I can swim.  Oh!  I can swim half a mile.  Some day we will swim races together.  Why not?  And you ride? . . .

“The horse bolted—­and you stuck on?  Did you squeak?  I stick on, but I have to squeak.  But you—­of course, No! you mustn’t.  I’m just a little woman.  And I ride big horses. . . .”

And for the end she had invented a characteristic little ceremony.

She would stand up in front of him and put her hands on his shoulders and look into his face.

“Clean eyes?” she would say. “—­still?”

Then she would take his ears in her little firm hands and kiss very methodically his eyes and his forehead and his cheeks and at last his lips.  Her own eyes would suddenly brim bright with tears.

“Go,” she would say.

That was the end.