She would be troubled by such moments when they came, for she was growing distantly fond of Roger.  There was something touching about this pale child, whose hunger for love was so strong that it survived and struggled through the clayey substance of its general being which had smothered all other movements of its soul; who was so full of love itself that it accepted the empty sham of feeling she gave it and breathed on it, and filled it with its own love, and was so innocent that it did not detect that nobody had really given it anything, and went on rejoicing, thus redeeming her from guilt.  He would come and stand at the door of any room in which she was sitting, and she would pretend not to know he was there, so that she need caress him or say the forced loving word; but when at length, irritated by his repeated sniffs, she turned towards him, she would find the grey marbles of his eyes bright with happiness, and he would cry out in his dreadful whistling voice, “Ah, you didn’t know I was watching you!” and run across undoubtingly to her arms.  There would be real gratitude in the embrace she gave him.  His trust in her had so changed the moment that she need not feel remorse for it.

It had seemed quite possible that they could go on like this for ever, until the very instant that all was betrayed.  She had had a terrible time with Richard, who was now seven years old.  After their midday meal he had asked permission to go and spend the afternoon playing with some other boys on the marshes, and she had given it to him with a kiss, under which she had thought he seemed a little sullen.  When Roger and she had nearly finished their tea he had appeared at the door, had stood there for a minute, and then, throwing up his head, had said doggedly:  “I’ve had a lovely time at the circus.”  She had left the bread-knife sticking in midloaf and sat looking at him in silence.  This was real drama, for she had refused to take them to the circus and forbidden him to go by himself because there was a measles epidemic in the neighbourhood.  It flashed across her that by asking for permission to play with the boys on the marshes when he meant to go to the circus he had told her a lie.  The foolish primitive maternal part of her was convulsed with horror at his fault.  Because he was more important than anybody else, it seemed the most tremendous fault that anybody had ever committed, and because he was her son it seemed quite unlike any other fault and far more excusable.  Her detached wisdom warned her that she must check all such tendencies in him, since what would in other children be judged a shortcoming natural to their age, would in him be ascribed to the evil blood of his lawless begetting, and he would start life under the powerful suggestion of a bad reputation.  She resolved to punish him.  The core of her that was nothing but love for Richard, that would have loved him utterly if they had not been mother and son, but man and woman, or man and man, or woman and woman, cried out with anguish that she should have to hurt him to guard against the destiny which she herself had thrust upon him.