sa, up-in-arms, flashed back.

"Why, indeed?--but why drag in Humanity? And why should I give up my
work to stay here? I felt I ought to come--for a while--when you {198}
asked it. I could see that father and Evelyn thought I ought. But now
that I have put the flat in shape and trained Myra Ann,--she wants to
stay with you, by the way,--things will run smoothly. I can come up
occasionally to see how it goes."

At this assumption that her need of her child was purely practical,
something, some tangible, iron thing, seemed to strike Clarissa's
heart. She could feel its impact, feel the distressful shudder along
all her nerves, the explosion in her palms. She looked down at them
curiously. It almost seemed to her that she would behold them
shattered by the pain!

She turned her eyes away and they fell upon the bowl of daffodils.
Daffodils burning in an April sun. In what long-forgotten hour of
stress had she once seen the flame of daffodils burn {199} bright
against an April sun? Slowly her brain made the association. Ah, yes!
That day she told Paul she would leave him, he had brought her
daffodils.--Had _Paul_ felt like this?

Clarissa--Clarissa who had never before either asked or given quarter
--heard her own voice, tense with feeling, say, "Marvel, I can't let
you go, not yet!"

"Why, mother! I can't stay longer than June. Of all people in the
world, you ought to admit that I must do my work! Of course I know you
need a home as much as any one, though you never own it. That's why
you have liked to have me here this winter because I could help you
make one. You none of you know, you reformers! You are just
air-plants. You have no roots."

"It is part of the profession. 'Foxes {200} have holes--" Clarissa
retorted, driven to her last defense.

Marvel lifted her head, shocked at the implication.

"I don't believe it is wrong to tell you what I think," she said
abruptly. "You ought to know the other side, my side. Of course I'm
only a girl still. I dare say there is a great deal I do not
understand. But I do know about homes. The attitude of these people
you admire and quote does seem to me so ridiculous! They all admit
that the race lives for the child. But they say--and you follow them--
that the child can be best cared for by specialists, and the house can
be left to itself, while the mothers can, and should, go out and hunt
up some other specialty. It is the idea of a shirk! Loving a child is
a profession in