ile."

"Vere, it is true you are growing up," she said, speaking rather slowly,
as if to give herself time for something. "Perhaps I was wrong the other
day in what I said. You may read Emile's books if you like."

"Madre!"

Vere's face flushed with eager pleasure.

"Thank you, Madre!"

She went up to bed radiant.

When she had gone Hermione stood where she was. She had just done a
thing that was mean, or at least she had done a thing from a mean, a
despicable motive. She knew it as the door shut behind her child, and
she was frightened of herself. Never before had she been governed by
so contemptible a feeling as that which had just prompted her. If Emile
ever knew, or even suspected what it was, she felt that she could never
look into his face again with clear, unfaltering eyes. What madness was
upon her? What change was working within her? Repulsion came, and with
it the desire to combat at once, strongly, the new, the hateful self
which had frightened her.

She hastened after Vere, and in a moment was knocking at the child's
door.

"Who's there? Who is it?"

"Vere!" called the mother.

As she called she tried the door, and found it locked.

"Madre! It's you!"

"Yes. May I come in?"

"One tiny moment."

The voice within sounded surely a little startled and uneven, certainly
not welcoming. There was a pause. Hermione heard the rustling of paper,
then a drawer shut sharply.

Vere was hiding away her poems!

When Hermione understood that she felt the strong, good impulse suddenly
shrivel within her, and a bitter jealousy take its place. Vere came to
the door and opened it.

"Oh, come in, Madre! What is it?" she asked.

In her bright eyes there was the look of one unexpectedly disturbed.
Hermione glanced quickly at the writing-table.

"You--you weren't writing my note to Monsieur Emile?" she said.

She stepped into the room. She wished she could force Vere to tell
her about the poems, but without asking. She felt as if she could not
continue in her present condition, excluded from Vere's confidence. Yet
she knew now that she could never plead for it.

"No, Madre. I can do it to-morrow."

Vere looked and sounded surprised, and the mother felt more than ever
like an intruder. Yet something dogged kept her there.

"Are you tired, Vere?" she asked.

"Not a bit."

"Then let us have a little talk."

"Of course."

Vere shut the door. Hermione knew by the way she shut it that she wanted
to