And now the thought was whirling in both their minds that, after years and years of wretchedness and disunion, they were going to separate after all! For Papa's happiness, Mamma had said; and Addie believed that that was how she meant it.
Apart from this, there had been no names mentioned; but Addie knew that both Mamma and Papa, that afternoon, had thought—as he was thinking now—had thought, behind their spoken words, of Marianne. And now jealousy—that heritage from both his parents—sprang up in the boy's breast, jealousy no longer vague and formless. He felt it with a keener pang because Papa, at this moment, cared more for Marianne than for him. He felt too, for the first time, that, though he did not mean to, he loved his father better than his mother: his father who was like a child, who was himself a boy, a brother, a friend to him, something more than a father almost. In their brotherly comradeship, they had seemed gradually to lose sight of the difference in age, of filial respect; and in Addie's love for his father there was an element—not yet fully developed, but slowly gathering strength—of protection almost, a feeling that he was perhaps not yet the stronger, but that he would become so when he was a little older. It was a strange feeling, but it had always come natural to him, that way of looking upon his father as a younger brother to be loved and protected.
