‘Mother!’

‘You think of no one but yourself. Do you suppose I don’t know why you don’t want to go away? You’d have jumped at it any time during these five years, but now just because Nicholas Carey is home again you don’t want to go!’ She laughed on a high, angry note. ‘Do you know so little about men as to suppose that he ever gives you a thought? Darling, it’s really very stupid if you do. Five years!’ She laughed again. ‘There will have been dozens of girls since you. That’s what men are like. Have you looked in the glass lately? When Ella Harrison told me he was back I wondered if he would even recognize you.’

‘Mother, you’ll make yourself ill.’

It was her only defence, her only weapon. If she answered back, if she let the sick hurt in her turn to anger, the scene would end as other scenes had done – her mother suddenly frightened at the storm she had raised herself, gasping for breath, alternately clinging to her and pushing her away. There would be the dosing, the getting her to bed, the telephoning to Dr Barrington. It had happened so many times, and she knew her part in it, a part in a play which has been played so often that her response to the cues had become automatic. She must keep her voice low, she must avoid saying or doing anything that could offend, she must produce the sal volatile and the smelling-salts at exactly the right moment, and when the time came she must allow herself to be forgiven.

She went through with it now. It wasn’t, after all, to be one of the worst scenes, since Mrs Graham had fortunately remembered about Mr Snead and the Harrisons coming in to bridge. She had had her hair done on purpose, and she didn’t want to waste the Sungleam, so she checked herself, pressed her hand to her heart, sighed, closed her eyes, and said faintly,

‘I’m not really strong enough for this sort of thing, darling – you ought to know that. If you will just help me to the bed…’

There was a good