which would have arrested her. Before she answered him,
his eyes, with a keen restlessness, as unlike as possible to the lingering gaze
of the portrait, had travelled quickly over the room, alighting on her again as
she said -
    »Everything is changed, Harold. I am an old woman, you see.«
    »But straighter and more upright than some of the young ones!« said Harold;
inwardly, however, feeling that age had made his mother's face very anxious and
eager. »The old women at Smyrna are like sacks. You've not got clumsy and
shapeless. How is it I have the trick of getting fat?« (Here Harold lifted his
arm and spread out his plump hand.) »I remember my father was as thin as a
herring. How is my father? Where is he?«
    Mrs Transome just pointed to the curtained doorway, and let her son pass
through it alone. She was not given to tears; but now, under the pressure of
emotion that could find no other vent, they burst forth. She took care that they
should be silent tears, and before Harold came out of the library again they
were dried. Mrs Transome had not the feminine tendency to seek influence through
pathos; she had been used to rule in virtue of acknowledged superiority. The
consciousness that she had to make her son's acquaintance, and that her
knowledge of the youth of nineteen might help her little in interpreting the man
of thirty-four, had fallen like lead on her soul; but in this new acquaintance
of theirs she cared especially that her son, who had seen a strange world,
should feel that he was come home to a mother who was to be consulted on all
things, and who could supply his lack of the local experience necessary to an
English land-holder. Her part in life had been that of the clever sinner, and
she was equipped with the views, the reasons, and the habits which belonged to
that character: life would have little meaning for her if she were to be gently
thrust aside as a harmless elderly woman. And besides, there were secrets which
her son must never know. So, by the time Harold came from the library again, the
traces of tears were not discernible, except to a very careful observer. And he
did not observe his mother carefully; his eyes only glanced at her on their way
to the North Loamshire Herald, lying on the table near her, which he took up
with his left hand, as he said -
    »Gad! what