"

She rose, and he turned out the gas, then followed her closely upstairs,
carrying her candle. On the landing he kissed her close.

"Good-night, mother."

"Good-night!" she said.

He pressed his face upon the pillow in a fury of misery. And yet,
somewhere in his soul, he was at peace because he still loved his mother
best. It was the bitter peace of resignation.

The efforts of his father to conciliate him next day were a great
humiliation to him.

Everybody tried to forget the scene.

CHAPTER IX

DEFEAT OF MIRIAM

PAUL was dissatisfied with himself and with everything. The deepest
of his love belonged to his mother. When he felt he had hurt her, or
wounded his love for her, he could not bear it. Now it was spring, and
there was battle between him and Miriam. This year he had a good deal
against her. She was vaguely aware of it. The old feeling that she was
to be a sacrifice to this love, which she had had when she prayed, was
mingled in all her emotions. She did not at the bottom believe she
ever would have him. She did not believe in herself primarily: doubted
whether she could ever be what he would demand of her. Certainly she
never saw herself living happily through a lifetime with him. She saw
tragedy, sorrow, and sacrifice ahead. And in sacrifice she was proud,
in renunciation she was strong, for she did not trust herself to support
everyday life. She was prepared for the big things and the deep things,
like tragedy. It was the sufficiency of the small day-life she could not
trust.

The Easter holidays began happily. Paul was his own frank self. Yet she
felt it would go wrong. On the Sunday afternoon she stood at her bedroom
window, looking across at the oak-trees of the wood, in whose branches a
twilight was tangled, below the bright sky of the afternoon. Grey-green
rosettes of honeysuckle leaves hung before the window, some already, she
fancied, showing bud. It was spring, which she loved and dreaded.

Hearing the clack of the gate she stood in suspense. It was a bright
grey day. Paul came into the yard with his bicycle, which glittered
as he walked. Usually he rang his bell and laughed towards the house.
To-day he walked with shut lips and cold, cruel bearing, that had
something of a slouch and a sneer in it. She knew him well by now, and
could tell from that keen-looking, aloof young body of his what was
happening inside him. There was a cold correctness in the way he put his
bicycle in it