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THE LATER LIFE

ceptible to the others. It did not shine out from her; and her foot merely moved a shade quicker, her speech became a shade more spontaneous. But everything that blossomed and flamed up in her she kept to herself, in the vast silence of her broad but unshared vistas. To her husband she was gentler, to her son she was younger. Only now, in those walks, perhaps Addie was the one person in her life who noticed that, when Mamma happened to mention Mr. Brauws' name, an unusual note sounded in her brighter, younger voice. A boy of his age does not analyse a subtle perception of this kind; only, without reasoning, without analysing, just instinctively, this boy of fourteen thought of his father, whom he worshipped with a strange, protecting adoration such as one gives to a brother or a friend—a younger brother, a younger friend—and felt a pang of jealousy on his behalf, jealousy of this man who did what Papa never did, talked with Mamma for hours three or four times a week, so often in fact that she was growing younger, that she had taken to reading, so as no longer to be ignorant, that she had developed a need for walking great distances. But the lad kept this jealousy locked up within himself, allowed none to perceive it. Perhaps he was just a trifle colder to him, to this man, the friend of the family, though Brauws was so fond of him, Addie, almost passionately fond of him indeed: Addie knew that. This jealousy for his father, jealousy of that