lancholy tops them. It is a mere duty to be serene. That she
could not be. She could not face life, as life perhaps is. She could not
smile at a lover who loved elsewhere. It was not herself, it was he who
prevented her. So she thought and for hours in her darkened room she
washed her hands of him, washed them in tears. It took a wise man to
write the praise of folly.

The door of the room opened. It opened slowly, noiselessly, obviously.
With exasperating precautions Mrs. Austen entered. The taste of
benedictine was still in her mouth and, savouring it, she whispered:

"Are you asleep?"

"No."

"Will you eat anything?"

"No."

"Are you able to talk?"

Margaret turned. She could talk, but to what end and to whom? Certainly
not to her mother, who possessed in its perfection, the household art of
misinterpreting everything. Margaret had tried to love her. But perhaps
any affection is a habit when it does not happen to be an instinct. The
habit had never been formed, the instinct had been repressed. Always her
mother had treated her with that indulgence which is as empty as an
unfilled grate. There was no heat there. You could not warm your heart
at it. But a child must love some one. Margaret had begun by loving her
mother. That is the way with children. They begin by loving their
parents. Later they judge them. Sometimes, though not always, they
forgive. One should not judge anybody. Margaret knew that, but she was a
human being. She thought her mother a worldly woman. The fact that she
was false as Judas was not apparent to this girl whose knowledge of
Iscariotism was as hearsay as her knowledge of gorillas.

Now, as she turned in her bed, it was in defence against intrusion.
Deference to her mother she had always observed. But she could not admit
her to the privacy of her thoughts and, in turning her face to the wall,
she told herself that she would not be cross-questioned.

Mrs. Austen had no intention of putting her daughter in the
confessional. Anything of the kind would have bored her. Besides, what
she thought was unimportant. It was what she did or might do that
mattered.

Vacating the door she approached the bed. "Are you feeling any better?"

Margaret was feeling, if possible, worse. But she never complained, or,
if she had to complain, then the complaint was solely by way of
explanation. She turned again.

"For if you are," Mrs. Austen continued, "I ought to say something."

Margaret put a han