spite of
Sir Godfrey and the family estate of which she was always talking, she
was common to the heart--not a lady like Christine and his mother--and
her occasionally adopted pose of authority convulsed him with a blind,
ungovernable fury. He was too young to understand that she meant
well--was indeed good-natured and kindly enough in her natural
environment--and as she advanced upon him now, in reality to smooth his
disordered hair, he drew back, an absurd miniature replica of James
Stonehouse in his worst rages, his fists clenched, his teeth set on a
horrible recurring nausea.

"If you touch me, Edith--I'll--I'll bite you----"

"Hush, darling--you mustn't speak like that----"

"Oh, don't mind me, Christine. I'm not accustomed to respect in this
house. I don't expect it. 'Edith,' indeed! Did you ever hear such a
thing! I can't think what Jim was thinking about to allow it. He
ought to call me 'Mother'----"

Robert tore himself free from Christine's soothing embrace. He had a
moment's blinding, heart-breaking vision of his real mother. She stood
close to him, looking at him with her grave eyes, demanding of him that
he should avenge this insult. And in a moment he would be sick again.

"I wouldn't--wouldn't call you mother--not if you killed me. I
wouldn't if you put me in the fire----"

"Robert, dear."

"You see, Christine--but of course you won't see. You're blind where
he's concerned. What a wicked temper. Deceitful, too. I'm sure I'm
glad he's not my child. He's going to be like his father."

"I want to be like my father. I wouldn't be like you for anything."

"Robert, be quiet at once or I shall punish you."

She was angry now. She had been greatly tried during the last
twenty-four hours, and to her he was just an alien, hateful little boy
who made her feel like an interloper in her own house, bought with her
own money. She seized him by the arm, shaking him viciously, and he
flew at her, biting and kicking with all his strength.

It was an ugly, wretched scene. It ended abruptly on the landing,
where she let go her hold with a cry of pain and Robert Stonehouse
rolled down the stairs, bumping his head and catching his arm cruelly
in the banisters. He was on his feet instantly. He heard Christine
coming and he ran on, down into the hall, where he caught up his little
boots, which she had been cleaning for him, and after a desperate
struggle with the latch, out into the road--sobb