rehead; it does so spoil it!'
And she would say: "Yes, darling, I know, it's very sad; only I'm NOT
clever." And, if a Liberal government chanced to be in power, would add:
"Of course, I do think this Government is dreadful. I MUST show you
a sermon of the dear Bishop of Walham. I cut it out of the 'Daily
Mystery.' He puts things so well--he always has such nice ideas."

And Felix, getting up, would walk a little and sit down again
too suddenly. Then, as if entreating him to look over her want of
'cleverness,' she would put out a hand that, for all its whiteness, had
never been idle and smooth his forehead. It had sometimes touched him
horribly to see with what despair she made attempts to follow him in his
correlating efforts, and with what relief she heard him cease enough
to let her say: "Yes, dear; only, I must show you this new kind of
expanding cork. It's simply splendid. It bottles up everything!" And
after staring at her just a moment he would acquit her of irony. Very
often after these occasions he had thought, and sometimes said: "Mother,
you're the best Conservative I ever met." She would glance at him then,
with a special loving doubtfulness, at a loss as to whether or no he had
designed to compliment her.

When he had given her half an hour to rest he made his way to the
blue corridor, where a certain room was always kept for her, who never
occupied it long enough at a time to get tired of it. She was lying on a
sofa in a loose gray cashmere gown. The windows were open, and the
light breeze just moved in the folds of the chintz curtains and stirred
perfume from a bowl of pinks--her favorite flowers. There was no bed in
this bedroom, which in all respects differed from any other in Clara's
house, as though the spirit of another age and temper had marched in and
dispossessed the owner. Felix had a sensation that one was by no means
all body here. On the contrary. There was not a trace of the body
anywhere; as if some one had decided that the body was not quite nice.
No bed, no wash-stand, no chest of drawers, no wardrobe, no mirror, not
even a jar of Clara's special pot-pourri. And Felix said:

"This can't be your bedroom, Mother?"

Frances Freeland answered, with a touch of deprecating quizzicality:

"Oh yes, darling. I must show you my arrangements." And she rose.
"This," she said, "you see, goes under there, and that under here; and
that again goes under this. Then they all go under that, and then I pu