'Shake hands,' I said warmly. 'I'm delighted.'
And soon afterwards my mother sidled in, shyly.
'The lad's delighted, Sarah,' said Mr Nixon shortly.
I said nothing about my own engagement that night. I had never thought
of my mother as a woman with a future, I had never realized that she
was desirable, and that a man might desire her, and that her lonely
existence in that house was not all that she had the right to demand
from life. And I was ashamed of my characteristic filial selfish
egoism. So I decided that I would not intrude my joys on hers until the
next morning. We live and learn.