Constance had imagined long, detailed, absorbing, and highly novel conversations between herself and her mother upon this their first meeting after her marriage.  But alone in the bedroom, and with a clear half-hour to dinner, they neither of them seemed to have a great deal to impart.

Mrs. Baines slowly removed her light mantle and laid it with precautions on the white damask counterpane.  Then, fingering her weeds, she glanced about the chamber.  Nothing was changed.  Though Constance had, previous to her marriage, envisaged certain alterations, she had determined to postpone them, feeling that one revolutionist in a house was enough.

“Well, my chick, you all right?” said Mrs. Baines, with hearty and direct energy, gazing straight into her daughter’s eyes.

Constance perceived that the question was universal in its comprehensiveness, the one unique expression that the mother would give to her maternal concern and curiosity, and that it condensed into six words as much interest as would have overflowed into a whole day of the chatter of some mothers.  She met the candid glance, flushing.

“Oh yes!” she answered with ecstatic fervour.  “Perfectly!”

And Mrs. Baines nodded, as if dismissing that.  “You’re stouter,” said she, curtly.  “If you aren’t careful you’ll be as big as any of us.”

“Oh, mother!”

The interview fell to a lower plane of emotion.  It even fell as far as Maggie.  What chiefly preoccupied Constance was a subtle change in her mother.  She found her mother fussy in trifles.  Her manner of laying down her mantle, of smoothing out her gloves, and her anxiety that her bonnet should not come to harm, were rather trying, were perhaps, in the very slightest degree, pitiable.  It was nothing; it was barely perceptible, and yet it was enough to alter Constance’s mental attitude to her mother.  “Poor dear!” thought Constance.  “I’m afraid she’s not what she was.”  Incredible that her mother could have age in less than six weeks!  Constance did not allow for the chemistry that had been going on in herself.

The encounter between Mrs. Baines and her son-in-law was of the most satisfactory nature.  He was waiting in the parlour for her to descend.  He made himself exceedingly agreeable, kissing her, and flattering her by his evidently sincere desire to please.  He explained that he had kept an eye open for the waggonette, but had been called away.  His “Dear me!” on learning about Aunt Harriet lacked nothing in conviction, though both women knew that his affection for Aunt Harriet would never get the better of his reason.  To Constance, her husband’s behaviour was marvellously perfect.  She had not suspected him to be such a man of the world.  And her eyes said to her mother, quite unconsciously:  “You see, after all, you didn’t rate Sam as high as you ought to have done.  Now you see your mistake.”