nown feeling came over him: oh, what narrow cheeks she had. And the
soft hair near her temples--was--was----

"You're getting quite grey," he said all at once, quite dismayed,
and stretched out his finger. "There, quite grey."

She nodded. A look of displeasure lengthened her delicate face, and
made it appear still narrower.

"You should laugh more," he advised. "Then people would never see
you had wrinkles."

Wrinkles--oh yes, wrinkles. She passed her hand over her forehead
nervously. What uncharitable eyes children had. Youth and beauty had no
doubt disappeared for ever--but it was this boy who had deprived her of
the last remnant of them. And it sounded like a reproach as she said:
"Sorrow has done that. Your serious illness and--and----" she
hesitated: should she begin now about what troubled her so?"--and many
other things," she concluded with a sigh.

"I can understand that," he said naively. "You're so old, too."

Well, he was honest, she had to confess that; but he said it without
a trace of tender feeling. She could not suppress a slight irritation;
it was not pleasant to be reminded of your age by your child. "I'm not
so old as all that," she said.

"Oh, I don't mean either that you're _very_ old. But still much
older than Cilia, for example."

She winced--he always brought in that person.

"Cilia is a pretty girl, don't you think so, mother?"

She got so angry that she lost control of herself. "Do you think
so?" she said curtly, rising. "She's leaving on the first of
October."

"She's leaving? Oh no!" He stared at her incredulously.

"Yes, yes." She felt she was cruel, but could she be otherwise? His
disbelieving tone expressed such terror. "She's leaving. I'm going to
give her notice."

"Oh no, you won't." He laughed. "You won't do that."

"Yes, I will." She emphasised each word; it sounded irrevocable.

He still shook his head incredulously: it could not be. But then he
suddenly remembered Cilia's depression and her words that evening: "I
suppose she's going to give me notice." "No, you shan't do so." He
started up in bed.

"I shall not ask you."

"No, you shan't, you shan't," he cried. All at once Cilia moved
across his mental vision, her ingenuous eyes looked at him so sadly--he
liked her so much--and she was to go? He was seized with fury.

"She shan't go, she shan't go," he howled, and shouted it louder and
louder: "She shan't go." He was in a mad, indescribable frame of mind.
He