“Nothing but beauty, darling.”

“What exactly is beauty?”

“What exactly is—­Oh!  Jon, that’s a poser.”

“Can I see it, for instance?” His mother got up, and sat beside him.  “You do, every day.  The sky is beautiful, the stars, and moonlit nights, and then the birds, the flowers, the trees—­they’re all beautiful.  Look out of the window—­there’s beauty for you, Jon.”

“Oh! yes, that’s the view.  Is that all?”

“All? no.  The sea is wonderfully beautiful, and the waves, with their foam flying back.”

“Did you rise from it every day, Mum?”

His mother smiled.  “Well, we bathed.”

Little Jon suddenly reached out and caught her neck in his hands.

“I know,” he said mysteriously, “you’re it, really, and all the rest is make-believe.”

She sighed, laughed, said:  “Oh!  Jon!”

Little Jon said critically: 

“Do you think Bella beautiful, for instance?  I hardly do.”

“Bella is young; that’s something.”

“But you look younger, Mum.  If you bump against Bella she hurts.”

“I don’t believe ‘Da’ was beautiful, when I come to think of it; and Mademoiselle’s almost ugly.”

“Mademoiselle has a very nice face.”  “Oh! yes; nice.  I love your little rays, Mum.”

“Rays?”

Little Jon put his finger to the outer corner of her eye.

“Oh!  Those?  But they’re a sign of age.”

“They come when you smile.”

“But they usen’t to.”

“Oh! well, I like them.  Do you love me, Mum?”

“I do—­I do love you, darling.”

“Ever so?”

“Ever so!”

“More than I thought you did?”

“Much—­much more.”

“Well, so do I; so that makes it even.”

Conscious that he had never in his life so given himself away, he felt a sudden reaction to the manliness of Sir Lamorac, Dick Needham, Huck Finn, and other heroes.

“Shall I show you a thing or two?” he said; and slipping out of her arms, he stood on his head.  Then, fired by her obvious admiration, he mounted the bed, and threw himself head foremost from his feet on to his back, without touching anything with his hands.  He did this several times.

That evening, having inspected what they had brought, he stayed up to dinner, sitting between them at the little round table they used when they were alone.  He was extremely excited.  His mother wore a French-grey dress, with creamy lace made out of little scriggly roses, round her neck, which was browner than the lace.  He kept looking at her, till at last his father’s funny smile made him suddenly attentive to his slice of pineapple.  It was later than he had ever stayed up, when he went to bed.  His mother went up with him, and he undressed very slowly so as to keep her there.  When at last he had nothing on but his pyjamas, he said: