He had reflected their
joys and their sorrows. He had suffered the family destiny without
having shaped it. He had lived, vicariously, their good hours and
their bad. And now, in his old age, he was waiting again for the
vicarious joy of Graham's child.
"But you'll not be leaving the house, sir?"
"I don't know. I shall keep my rooms. But I shall probably live
at the club. The young people ought to be alone, for a while.
There are readjustments - You never married, Buckham?"
"No, Mr. Spencer. I intended to, at one time. I came to this
country to make a home, and as I was rather a long time about it,
she married some one else."
Clayton caught the echo of an old pain in Buckham's repressed voice.
Buckham, too! Was there in the life of every man some woman tragedy?
Buckham, sitting alone in his west window and looking toward the
sunset, Buckham had his memories.
"She lost her only son at Neuve Chapelle," Buckham was saying quietly.
"In a way, it was as tho I had lost a boy.
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