"I DO like to talk to her--I never said I didn't. But I DON'T love her."

"Is there nobody else to talk to?"

"Not about the things we talk of. There's a lot of things that you're not interested in, that--"

"What things?"

Mrs. Morel was so intense that Paul began to pant.

"Why--painting--and books. YOU don't care about Herbert Spencer."

"No," was the sad reply. "And YOU won't at my age."

"Well, but I do now--and Miriam does--"

"And how do you know," Mrs. Morel flashed defiantly, "that I shouldn't. Do you ever try me!"

"But you don't, mother, you know you don't care whether a picture's decorative or not; you don't care what MANNER it is in."

"How do you know I don't care? Do you ever try me? Do you ever talk to me about these things, to try?"

"But it's not that that matters to you, mother, you know t's not."

"What is it, then--what is it, then, that matters to me?" she flashed. He knitted his brows with pain.

"You're old, mother, and we're young."

He only meant that the interests of HER age were not the interests of his. But he realised the moment he had spoken that he had said the wrong thing.

"Yes, I know it well--I am old. And therefore I may stand aside; I have nothing more to do with you. You only want me to wait on you--the rest is for Miriam."

He could not bear it. Instinctively he realised that he was life to her. And, after all, she was the chief thing to him, the only supreme thing.

"You know it isn't, mother, you know it isn't!"

She was moved to pity by his cry.

"It looks a great deal like it," she said, half putting aside her despair.

"No, mother--I really DON'T love her. I talk to her, but I want to come home to you."

He had taken off his collar and tie, and rose, bare-throated, to go to bed. As he stooped to kiss his mother, she threw her arms round his neck, hid her face on his shoulder, and cried, in a whimpering voice, so unlike her own that he writhed in agony:

"I can't bear it. I could let another woman--but not her. She'd leave me no room, not a bit of room--"

And immediately he hated Miriam bitterly.

"And I've never--you know, Paul--I've never had a husband--not really--"

He stroked his mother's hair, and his mouth was on her throat.

"And she exults so in taking you from me--she's not like ordinary girls."

"Well, I don't love her, mother," he murmured, bowing his head and hiding his eyes on her shoulder in misery. His mother kissed him a long, fervent kiss.