anything
at all. His arm was still about the grandmother's neck, mechanically he
gave her the kiss she asked for, but it was with real relief he saw his
mother open the door to the living-room and responded to her demand that
he go to bed at once.

XI

Hardly any memory left behind by Keith's childhood was more acute than
the image of Granny seated in the centre of the kitchen, her stolid, yet
pleasant old face bent over some household task, and her whole figure
instinct with a passive protest against her enforced dependency or,
maybe against life's arbitrariness in general. One moment she seemed to
be brooding deeply, and the next she looked as if there was not a
thought in her head. For one reason or another, her anomalous position
and peculiar attitude occupied Keith's mind a great deal, and many of
the questions with which he plied his mother were concerned with Granny.
They were fairly discreet as a rule, but on the morning after the scene
just described, some impulse of which he had no clear understanding made
him perplex his mother with the abrupt question:

"Why does Granny drink?"

They were alone in the living-room at the time, she seated in her big
easy chair by the window and he, as usual, kneeling on the hassock
at her feet.

She looked up at him with as much surprise as if he had hit her
viciously. A deeper red flowed into her cheeks that kept their soft
pinkness even when she was thought at death's door and lost it only
under the pressure of extreme anger.

At the same time a look came into her eyes that gave Keith a momentary
scare. It was only a flash, however, and changed quickly into something
like the helplessness that used to characterize her glance in moments of
heavy depression. Her voice trembled a little as she spoke:

"Because Granny's life has been very hard, and not very happy."

"Tell me about it," urged the boy.

There was a long pause during which he watched his mother's face
closely. Gradually its expression changed into one of resignation, and
then into determination, as if she had made up her mind to be done once
for all with a task that could not be avoided indefinitely. It was a
long story she told, at first hesitatingly, then with an eagerness that
betrayed an awakening purpose. Everything she said stuck deeply in the
boy's mind, and whenever he thought of Granny's life afterwards, he had
the impression of having learned all about it at that one time, although
the lik