“I shall speak with you presently,” she whispered, glancing at Desmond.

He heard her and his face flashed with the instinct of sport, which made me ashamed of any desire for a struggle with her.

“Good-night,” I said abruptly, turning away.

“We are all sleepy except this exemplary housewife with her napkins,” cried Ann.  “We will leave her.”

“Cassandra,” said Adelaide, when we were on the stairs, “how well you look!”

Ann, elevating her candle, remarked my eyes shone like a cat’s.

“Hiticutt’s tea was too strong,” added Adelaide; “it dilates the pupils.  I am sorry you are going away,” and she kissed me; this favor would have moved me at any other time, but now I rejoiced to see her depart and leave me alone.  I sat down by the toilet table and was arranging some bottles, when Mrs. Somers rustled in.  Out of breath, she began haughtily: 

“What do you mean?”

A lethargic feeling crept over me; my thoughts wandered; I never spoke nor stirred till she pulled my sleeve violently.

“If you touch me it will rouse me.  Did a child of yours ever inflict a blow upon you?”

She turned purple with rage, looming up before my vision like a peony.

“When are you going home?”

I counted aloud, “Sunday—­Monday,” and stopped at Wednesday.  “Ben is going back with me.”

“He may go.”

“And not Desmond?”

“Do you know Desmond?”

“Not entirely.”

“He has played with such toys as you are, and broken them.”

“Alas, he is hereditarily cruel!  Could I expect not to be broken?”

She caught up a glass goblet as if to throw it, but only grasped it so tight that it shivered.  “There goes one of the Pickersgill treasures, I am sure,” I thought.

“I am already scarred, you see.  I have been ’nurtured in convulsions.’”

The action seemed to loosen her speech; but she had to nerve herself to say what she intended; for some reason or other, she could not remain as angry as she wished.  What she said I will not repeat.

“Madam, I have no plans.  If I have a Purpose, it is formless yet.  If God saves us what can you do?”

She made a gesture of contempt.

“You have no soul to thank me for what may be my work,” and I opened the door.

Ben stood on the threshhold.

“In God’s name, what is this?”

I pointed to his mother.  She looked uneasy, and stepping forward put her hand on his arm; but he shook her off.

“You may call me a fool, Cassandra, for bringing you here,” he said in a bitter voice, “besides calling me cruel for subjecting you to these ordeals.  I knew how it would be with mother.  What is it, madam?” he asked imperiously, looking so much like her that I shuddered.

“It is not you she is after,” she hotly exclaimed.

“No, I should think not.”  And he led her out swiftly.