The girl was hurt.  Marion bit her lip while she watched her crossly pick up her spoon and eat her ice pudding as if it was a duty.  “This is like old times,” she essayed feebly.  “I’ve so often watched Richard eat it.  He went through various stages with this pudding.  When he was quite small he used to leave the crystallised cherries to the very last, because they were nicest, arranged in a row along the rim of his plate, openly and shamelessly.  When he went to school he began to be afraid that people would think that babyish if they noticed it, and he used to leave them among the ice, though somehow they always did get left to the last.  Then later on he began to side with public opinion himself, and think that perhaps there was something soft and unmanly about caring so much for anything to eat, so he used to gobble them first of all, trying not to taste them very much.  Then there came an awful holiday when he wouldn’t have any at all.  That was just before he insisted on going to sea.  But then he came back—­and ever since he’s had it every time we come here, and now he always leaves the cherries to the last.”  She was now immersed in the story she told; she was seeing again the slow magical increase of the small thing she had brought into the world, and the variations through which it passed in the different seasons of its youth, changing from brown candid gracefulness to a time of sulky clumsiness and perpetually abraded knees, and back again to gracefulness and willingness to share all laughter, yet ever remaining the small thing she had brought into the world.  With eyes cast down, trying to dissemble her pride, lest the gods should envy, she added harshly, “He was quite interesting ... but I suppose all boys go through these phases....  I’ve had no other experiences....”

Ellen was longing to hear what Richard was like when he was a boy, but she had been stung by that insolent, smiling murmur, and she could do nothing with any statement made by this woman but snarl at her.  “No other experience?” she questioned peevishly.  “I thought Richard said he had a half-brother.”

There was no longer any pride in Marion’s eyes to dissemble.  She stared at Ellen, and said heavily, as one who speaks concerning the violation of a secret, “Did Richard tell you that?” Before the girl had time to answer cruelly, “Yes, he tells me everything,” she had remembered certain things which made her stiffen in her chair and keep her chin up and use her eyes as if there still flashed in them the pride which had utterly vanished.  “Oh, yes,” she asserted, in that forced voice, but very loudly and deliberately.  “I have another son.  He’s a good boy.  His name is Roger Peacey.  You must meet him one day.  I hope you will like him.”  She paused and recollected why they were speaking of this other son, and continued, “But, you see, I had nothing to do with him when he was a boy.”