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 my life."'
`And you think I'd let a wife take me from you?'
`Well, you wouldn't ask her to marry your mother as well as you,' Mrs Morel smiled.
`She could do what she liked; she wouldn't have to interfere.'
`She wouldn't--till she'd got you--and then you'd see.'
`I never will see. I'll never marry while I've got you--I won't.'
`But I shouldn't like to leave you with nobody, my boy,' she cried.
`You're not going to leave me. What are you? Fifty-three! I'll give you till seventy-five. There you are, I'm fat and forty-four. Then I'll marry a staid body. See!'
His mother sat and laughed.
`Go to bed,' she said--`go to bed.'
`And we'll have a pretty house, you and me, and a servant, and it'll be just all right. I s'll perhaps be rich with my painting.'
`Will you go to bed!'
`And then you s'll have a pony-carriage. See yourself--a little Queen Victoria trotting round.'