"
She, knowing everything, would only smile gently, too
broken by suffering to make sarcastic repartees.
Before the child was born he gave her a kiss, and said,
"I have prayed all night for a boy."
Some strangely tender impulse moved her, and she said
faintly, "You are a boy yourself, Gino."
He answered, "Then we shall be brothers."
He lay outside the room with his head against the door
like a dog. When they came to tell him the glad news they
found him half unconscious, and his face was wet with tears.
As for Lilia, some one said to her, "It is a beautiful
boy!" But she had died in giving birth to him.
Chapter 5
At the time of Lilia's death Philip Herriton was just
twenty-four years of age--indeed the news reached Sawston on
his birthday. He was a tall, weakly-built young man, whose
clothes had to be judiciously padded on the shoulders in
order to make him pass muster. His face was plain rather
than not, and there was a curious mixture in it of good and
bad. He had a fine forehead and a good large nose, and both
observation and sympathy were in his eyes. But below the
nose and eyes all was confusion, and those people who
believe that destiny resides in the mouth and chin shook
their heads when they looked at him.
Philip himself, as a boy, had been keenly conscious of
these defects. Sometimes when he had been bullied or
hustled about at school he would retire to his cubicle and
examine his features in a looking-glass, and he would sigh
and say, "It is a weak face.
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