watched him well from under her lids and had guessed that his pride was disgusted at his adolescent clumsiness and moodiness and that he wanted to hide himself from her until he felt himself uncriticisable in his conduct of adult life.  She had had to alter that opinion to include another movement of his soul when, as they travelled together to London the day he joined his ship, he turned to her and said:  “My father never saw any fighting, did he?” She had met his eyes with wonder, and he had pressed the point rather roughly.  “He was in the army, wasn’t he?  But he didn’t see any fighting, did he?” She had stammered:  “No, I don’t think so.”  And he had turned away with a little stiff-lipped smile of satisfaction.  That had distressed her, but she had a vague and selfish feeling that she would imperil something if she argued the point.  But whatever his motives for going had been, she was glad that he went, for though she herself was not interested in anything outside her relationships, she knew that travel would afford him a thousand excitements that would evoke his magnificence.  The Spring day when he was expected to come home she had found her joy impossible to support under the eyes of the servant and the farm-men, for she had grown very sly about her fellow-men, and knew that it was best to hide happiness lest someone jealous should put out their hand to destroy it.  So she had gone down to the orchard and sat in the crook of a tree, looking out at an opal estuary where a frail rainstorm spun like a top in the sunshine before the variable April gusts.  She wondered how his dear brown face would look now he had outfaced danger and had been burned by strange suns.  She had heard suddenly the sound of steps coming down the path, and she had turned in ecstasy; but there was nobody there but a pale young man who looked like one of the East-End trippers who all through the summer months persistently trespassed on the farm lands.  As he saw her he stopped, and she was about to order him to leave the orchard by the nearest gate when he flapped his very large hands and cried out, “Mummie!  Mummie!” There was a whistling quality in the cry that instantly convinced her.  She drew herself taut and prepared to deal with him as a spirited woman deals with a blackmailer, but as he ran towards her, piping exultantly, “Now I’m sixteen I can say who I want to live with—­the vicar says so,” she remembered that he was her son, and suffered herself to be folded in his arms, which embraced her closely but without suggestion of strength.

That day, at least, she had played her part according to her duty:  she had corrected so far as possible the sin of her inner being.  It had not been so very difficult, for Roger had shown himself just as goldenhearted as he had been as a child.  He would not speak of the years of ill-treatment from which he had emerged, save to say tediously, over and over again, with a revolting, grateful whine in his voice, how hard Aunt Susan had worked to keep the peace when