neous
pressure. Then, turning away, she asked, "What about your luggage?"

"I've just this suitcase. I sent the rest in advance. Do you not think
that's the most sensible way?" said Ellen, in a tone intended to convey
that she was not above taking advice from an older woman.

Mrs. Yaverland made a vague, purring noise, which seemed to imply that
she found material consideration too puzzling for discussion, and
commanded the porter with one of those slow, imperative gestures that
Richard made when he wanted people to do things. Walking down the
platform, Ellen wondered why Richard always called her a little thing.
His mother was far smaller than she was, and broad-shouldered too, which
made her look dumpy. Her resemblance to Richard became marked again
when they got into the taxi, and she dealt with the porter and the
driver with just such quiet murmured commands and dippings into pockets
of loose change as Richard on these occasions, but Ellen did not find it
in the least endearing. She was angry that Richard was like that, not
because he was himself, but because he was this woman's son. When Mrs.
Yaverland asked in that beautiful voice which was annoyingly qualified
by terseness as her letters had been, "And how's Richard?" she replied
consequentially, with the air of a person describing his garden to a
person who has not one. But Mrs. Yaverland was too distracting to allow
her to pursue this line with any satisfaction. For she listened with
murmurs that were surely contented; and, having drawn off her very
thick, very soft leather gloves, she began to polish her nails, which
were already brighter than any Ellen had ever seen, against the palms of
her hands, staring meanwhile out of absent eyes at the sapphire London
night about them, which Ellen was feeling far too upset to enjoy.

There was a tormenting incongruity about this woman: those lacquered
nails shown on hands that were broad and strong like a man's; and the
head that rose from the specifically dark fur was massive and vigilant
and serene, like the head of a great man. Moreover, she was not in the
least what one expects an old person to be. Old persons ought to take up
the position of audience. They ought, above all things, to give a rest
to the minds of young people, who, goodness knows, have enough to worry
them, by being easily comprehensible. With mother one knew exactly where
one was; one knew everything that had happened to her and how she had
felt a