"
"Home again, James!" his wife would say, as he next entered the front
parlour, and bent down to kiss her where she sat. "It's a long day.
Isn't it time you were pulling in a bit? Surely some of the younger
heads should begin to relieve you."
"Responsibility, Mary dear! We cannot delegate responsibility," he would
answer.
"But we see nothing of you. You just sacrifice your whole life for the
business."
If he were in a good humour, he might answer with one of his rare sweet
laughs, and jokingly make one of his few French quotations: "_Telle est
la vie_! my dear, _Telle est la vie_! That's the French for it,
isn't it, Dot?"
James Mesurier was just perceptibly softening. Perhaps it was that he
was growing a little tired, that he was no longer quite the stern
disciplinarian we met in the first chapter; perhaps the influence of his
wife, and his experiences with his children, were beginning to hint to
him what it takes so long for a strong individual nature to learn, that
the law of one temperament cannot justly or fruitfully be enforced as
the law of another.
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