“Yes, what is it?” she answered, suspending operations for a moment to hear.

“Mother, if I had to kill all the ants in the world,” called Mark, “I’d a great deal rather they were all gathered up together in a heap than running around every-which-way, wouldn’t you?”

“For goodness’ sakes, what a silly baby thing to say!” commented Paul with energy.

Marise called heartily to Mark, “Yes indeed I would, dear.”

Paul asked curiously, “Mother, how can you answer him like that, such a fool thing!”

Marise felt another wave of hysterical laughter mounting, at the idea of the difficulty in perceiving the difference in degree of flatness between Mark’s remarks and those of Paul.

But it suddenly occurred to her that this was the time for Elly’s hour at the piano, and she heard no sound.  She hastily laid out the clean clothes for Paul, saw him started on the scrub in the bath-tub, and ran downstairs to see if she could find Elly, before the storm broke, turning over in her mind Elly’s favorite nooks.

* * * * *

The air was as heavy as noxious gas in the breathless pause before the arrival of the rain.

In the darkened, shaded hall stood a man’s figure, the face turned up towards her, the look on it meant for her, her only, not the useful house-mother, but that living core of her own self, buried, hidden, put off, choked and starved as she had felt it to be, all that morning.  That self rose up now, passionately grateful to be recognized, and looked back at him.

Thunder rolled among the distant hills.

She felt her pulse whirling with an excitement that made her lean against the wall, as he took a great stride towards her, crying out, “Oh, make an end . . . make an end of this. . . .”

The door behind him opened, and Elly ran in, red-faced and dusty.  “Mother, Mother, Reddy has come off her nest.  And there are twelve hatched out of the fourteen eggs!  Mother, they are such darlings!  I wish you’d come and see.  Mother, if I practise good, won’t you come afterwards and look at them?”

“You should say ‘practise well,’ not ‘good,’” said Marise, her accent openly ironical.

The wind, precursor of the storm falling suddenly on the valley, shook the trees till they roared.

Over the child’s head she exchanged with Vincent Marsh a long reckless look, the meaning of which she made no effort to understand, the abandon of which she made no effort to restrain.

With a dry, clattering, immediate rattle, without distance or dignity, the thunder broke threateningly over the house.

CHAPTER XVI

MASSAGE-CREAM; THEME AND VARIATIONS

July 20.