house to the yard door, already
recovering a little of poise, which meant artificiality, but still with
something of that real glow about her. She knew a moment of dread lest
Ishmael should rebuff it. She held out her arms with an uncontrolled
gesture, and heard her own voice call his name on an ugly piping note
she could not have told was hers.

CHAPTER II

WHAT MEN LIVE BY

Ishmael Ruan, like the rest of his world that day, had been planning
ahead in his mind. His first conceptions were blown away from him with
his breath at sight of Vassie glowing on the dingy railway platform; she
was far the more self-possessed of the two, which was mortifying to a
young man who, all the way down in the train, had been telling himself
with what tact and kindliness he was going to behave. John-James had
seemed so unaltered that his grip of the hand, as casual as though
Ishmael were any acquaintance just back from a day's excursion, had been
a relief. Remained his mother, for Tom, contrary to what John-James and
Vassie had expected, did not look in at Penzance Station to greet
Ishmael on his transit, and as to the Parson, he was letting Ishmael
alone to find his feet with his family, holding himself as a person to
be come to if occasion or affection prompted it later.

The drive was a silent one, as even Vassie felt shy, though she hid it
under an affectation of calmness. Ishmael had plenty of time to readjust
himself and think of his mother, the determining factor, now Archelaus
was away, in his happiness--or so he thought, ignorant in his
masculinity of the force and will sheathed in Vassie's velvet sleekness.
His mother ... he had no sentiment at the name; but then neither would
he have had if the relation between them had been a happy one. He would
then have felt love, but he would always have been of too deadly a
clarity for sentiment. He was sorry for his mother with a degree of
sympathy rare in one so young, for he had as little of the hardness of
youth as might be, and what he had was not of judgment, but feeling. He
was at the moment nothing but sorry for his mother, but though that pity
would not change to condemnation it might turn to dislike. He too, as
Annie was doing in the parlour as she awaited the sound of the wheels
that were bearing him nearer her, tried to clutch at memories. He could
find a few of fierce kindnesses, but not one of an embrace unqualified
by some queer feeling other than simple love, w