She would have been very angry if anyone had told her that she did not find her son as good a companion.

Caius did not tell her so, but he was perfectly aware of it.
Caius had not been long at home when his cousin Mabel came to visit them.

This time his mother made no sly remarks concerning Mabel's reason for timing her visit, because it seemed that Mabel had paid a long and comforting visit while he had been at the Magdalen Islands.

Mabel did not treat Caius now with the unconscious flattery of blind admiration, neither did she talk to him about Jim; but her silence whenever Jim's name was mentioned was eloquent.
Caius summed all this up in his own mind.

He and Jim had commenced life as lads together.