that his mother said was sensible enough, but in the sum they were
nonsense.

"You have been in London since September," she went on. "That is a long
time to be in London. Tell me about your life there. Do you work hard?
Not too hard, I hope?"

"No! hard enough to keep me busy," he said.

"Tell me about it all. I am afraid I have not been a very good mother to
you; I have not entered into your life enough. I want to do so now.
But I don't think you ever wanted to confide in me. It is sad when sons
don't confide in their mothers. But I daresay it was my fault, and now I
know so little about you."

She paused a moment, stroking her dog's ears, which twitched under her
touch.

"I hope you are happy, Michael," she said. "I don't think I am so happy
as I used to be. But don't tell your father; I feel sure he does not
notice it, and it would vex him. But I want you to be happy; you used
not to be when you were little; you were always sensitive and queer. But
you do seem happier now, and that's a good thing."

Here again this was all sensible, when taken in bits, but its aspect was
different when considered together. She looked at Michael anxiously a
moment, and then drew her chair closer to him, laying her thin, veined
hand, sparkling with many rings, on his knee.

"But it wasn't I who made you happier," she said, "and that's so
dreadful. I never made anybody happy. Your father always made himself
happy, and he liked being himself, but I suspect you haven't liked being
yourself, poor Michael. But now that you're living the life you chose,
which vexes your father, is it better with you?"

The shyness had gone from the gaze that he had seen her direct at him
at dinner, which fugitively fluttered away when she saw that it was
observed, and now that it was bent so unwaveringly on him he saw shining
through it what he had never seen before, namely, the mother-love
which he had missed all his life. Now, for the first time, he saw it;
recognising it, as by divination, when, with ray serene and untroubled,
it burst through the mists that seemed to hang about his mother's mind.
Before, noticing her change of manner, her restless questions, he had
been vaguely alarmed, and as they went on the alarm had become
more pronounced; but at this moment, when there shone forth the
mother-instinct which had never come out or blossomed in her life, but
had been overlaid completely with routine and conventionality, rendering
it too indo