of the mother within her was moved by the thought of the
disappointments that come with a greater knowledge of life. Vere would
suffer when she learned the truth, when she knew the meaning of failure.

Quite simply and naturally Hermione was including her child inevitably
within the circle of her own disaster.

If Emile knew, why did he not tell Vere what he had told her mother?

But Emile had surely shown much greater interest in Vere just lately
than ever before?

Was Emile helping Vere in what she was doing? But if he was, then he
must believe in Vere's capacity to do something that was worth doing.

Hermione knew the almost terrible sincerity of Artois in the things
of the intellect, his clear, unwavering judgment, his ruthless
truthfulness. Nothing would ever turn him from that. Nothing, unless
he--

Her face became suddenly scarlet, then pale. A monstrous idea had sprung
up in her mind; an idea so monstrous that she strove to thrust it away
violently, without even contemplating it. Why had Vere not told her?
There must be some good and sufficient reason. Vehemently--to escape
from that monstrous idea--she sought it. Why had everything else in her
child been revealed to her, only this one thing been hidden from her?

She searched the past, Vere and herself in that past. And now, despite
her emotion, her full intelligence was roused up and at work. And
presently she remembered that Emile and Vere shared the knowledge of
her own desire to create, and her utter failure to succeed in creation.
Emile knew the whole naked truth of that. Vere did not. But Vere knew
something. Could that mutual knowledge be the reason of this mutual
secrecy? As women often do, Hermione had leaped into the very core
of the heart of the truth, had leaped out of the void, guided by some
strange instinct never alive in man. But, as women very seldom do, she
shrank away from the place she had gained. Instead of triumphing, she
was afraid. She remembered how often her imagination had betrayed her,
how it had created phantoms, had ruined for her the lagging hours.
Again and again she had said to herself, "I will beware of it." Now she
accused it of playing her false once more, of running wild. Sharply she
pulled herself up. She was assuming things. That was her great fault, to
assume that things were that which perhaps they were not.

How often Emile had told her not to trust her imagination! She would
heed him now. She knew nothing. She