Mr. and Mrs. Derdon had one son. Father John Derdon, the priest. He never let her know when he was coming to see her, because he said she made too much fuss getting ready for him. As a rule he came to the house when both his father and his mother would be likely to be at home, but one afternoon he dropped in and found her alone, it being the middle of the week. She shouted joyfully at the sight of him, and began to unbutton his raincoat with her accustomed rough anxiety. He let her pull him out of it, and he struck lightly at her, laughing. She still had not grown accustomed to the black priest’s clothes on him. The black cloth gave him a bad air, as though he had stolen in from another century, or out of a bad dream. He was not the same.

He was fair-haired and fair-skinned. His head was long, and he brushed his limp fair hair very smooth around it, making a point of the high square forehead he had. His eyes were light blue, troubled, even aghast light blue. His clothes were the clothes of any priest, and yet there was something thin and jaunty about him, in the tilt of his head, or in one of the conscious, unnecessary gestures he was always making, that belonged more to an actor than to a priest.

“It’s long enough since you came near us,” she said. “I’ll get something for you to eat. Thanks be to God, I have a nice little bit of chicken down there.”

He went upstairs to wash his hands and look about his old room. He had the front bedroom, the best. There was everything just the same as ever. There were photographs of him, alone, and with other boys, and other seminarians, and on his ordination day. His mother had got frames for them and placed them on the chest of drawers, on the desk, on the mantelpiece, and around the walls. He heard her come into the room, and he turned, rolling up his shirtsleeves, to smile at her. He turned from her eyes to the gardens outside.

“Look at all the flowers,” he said foolishly.

She was close behind him and had taken his hand. She had strong, dry hands; it was impossible to forget their grasp. She captured his limp hand and fell down on her knees to kiss it and force it with her mouth. She petted it along her cheeks, along the hard curve of her jaw, and into her neck, so that he could feel that warm hair springing stiff and strong above it, and the soft hollow of her flesh below. Out of this dream he snatched away and hurled on her, half in laughter.

“Mother, Mother, how often must I caution you. My hands. Mother, my hands.”