They belonged to the same generation.
It was the first day of his holiday, she must let him enjoy himself; there was a whole fortnight more.
He would soon get sick of being all the time with a boy of seventeen.
Roger was sweet, but he was dull; she wasn’t going to let maternal affection blind her to that.
She must be very careful not to show that she was in the least put out.
From the beginning she had made up her mind that she would never make any claim on Tom; it would be fatal if he felt that he owed something to her.
‘Michael, why don’t you let that flat in the mews to Tom?
Now that he’s passed his exam and is a chartered accountant he can’t go on living in a bed-sitting room.’
‘That’s not a bad idea.
I’ll suggest it to him.’
‘It would save an agent’s fees.
We could help him to furnish it.
We’ve got a lot of stuff stored away.
We might just as well let him use it as have it moulder away in the attics.’
Tom and Roger came back to eat an enormous tea and then played tennis till the light failed.
After dinner they played dominoes.
Julia gave a beautiful performance of a still young mother fondly watching her son and his boy friend.
She went to bed early.
Presently they too went upstairs.
Their rooms were just over hers.
She heard Roger go into Tom’s room.
They began talking, her windows and theirs were open, and she heard their voices in animated conversation.
She wondered with exasperation what they found to say to one another.
She had never found either of them very talkative.
After a while Michael’s voice interrupted them.
‘Now then, you kids, you go to bed.
You can go on talking tomorrow.’
She heard them laugh.
‘All right, daddy,’ cried Roger.
‘A pair of damned chatterboxes, that’s what you are.’
She heard Roger’s voice again.
‘Well, good night, old boy.’
And Tom’s hearty answer:
‘So long, old man.’
‘Idiots!’ she said to herself crossly.
Next morning while she was having her breakfast Michael came into Julia’s room.
‘The boys have gone off to play golf at Huntercombe.
They want to play a couple of rounds and they asked if they need come back to lunch.
I told them that was quite all right.’
‘I don’t know that I particularly like the idea of Tom treating the house as if it was a hotel.’
‘Oh, my dear, they’re only a couple of kids.
Let them have all the fun they can get, I say.’
She would not see Tom at all that day, for she had to start for London between five and six in order to get to the theatre in good time.
It was all very well for Michael to be so damned good-natured about it.
She was hurt.
She felt a little inclined to cry.
He must be entirely indifferent to her, it was Tom she was thinking of now; and she had made up her mind that today was going to be quite different from the day before.
She had awakened determined to be tolerant and to take things as they came, but she hadn’t been prepared for a smack in the face like this.
‘Have the papers come yet?’ she asked sulkily.
She drove up to town with rage in her heart.