en Augustine said: "Did she ever ask
you?"

The candles had been lighted and the lamp brought in, making the corners
of the room look darker. There was only a vague radiance about the
chimney piece, the little candle-flames doubled in the mirror, and the
bright circle where Lady Channice and her son sat on either side of the
large, round table. The lamp had a green shade, and their faces were in
shadow. Augustine had turned away his eyes.

And now a strange and painful thing happened, stranger and more painful
than he could have foreseen; for his mother did not answer him. The
silence grew long and she did not speak. Augustine looked at her at last
and saw that she was gazing at him, and, it seemed to him, with helpless
fear. His own eyes did not echo it; anger, rather, rose in them, cold
fierceness, against himself, it was apparent, as well as against the
world that he suspected. He was not impulsive; he was not demonstrative;
but he got up and put his hand on her shoulder. "I don't mean to torment
you, like the rest of them," he said. "I don't mean to ask--and be
refused. Forget what I said. It's only--only--that it infuriates me.--To
see them all.--And you!--cut off, wasted, in prison here. I've been
seeing it for a long time; I won't speak of it again. I know that there
are sad things in your life. All I want to say, all I wanted to say
was--that I'm with you, and against them."

She sat, her face in shadow beneath him, her hands tightly clasped
together and pressed down upon her lap. And, in a faltering voice that
strove in vain for firmness, she said: "Dear Augustine--thank you. I
know you wouldn't want to hurt me. You see, when I came here to live, I
had parted--from your father, and I wanted to be quite alone; I wanted
to see no one. And they felt that: they felt that I wouldn't lead the
usual life. So it grew most naturally. Don't be angry with people, or
with the world. That would warp you, from the beginning. It's a good
world, Augustine. I've found it so. It is sad, but there is such
beauty.--I'm not cut off, or wasted;--I'm not in prison.--How can you
say it, dear, of me, who have you--and _him_."

Augustine's hand rested on her shoulder for some moments more. Lifting
it he stood looking before him. "I'm not going to quarrel with the
world," he then said. "I know what I like in it."

"Dear--thanks--" she murmured.

Augustine picked up his book again. "I'll study for a bit, now, in my
room," he said.