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because I love him, too.—That’s what I’ve been telling Clive.’

She did not look at her son as she found these succinct phrases. They seemed to cut her away from all her past life, that edifice of graces, reticences and dignities, and to set her adrift upon a sea as strange and as uncharted as any that Hester had ever embarked upon. She knew that he had leaned forward as he heard her, his eyes fixed upon her, his arms outstretched along the sheet; but she did not look down at him. ‘Clive can’t understand us, Hester,’ she said, keeping her bright, intrepid eyes upon her daughter-in-law. ‘He believes that we love the other best. Is that true, do you think? And if Clive can make such mistakes about us, do you feel that he loves us still?’

Hester’s hand had slowly dropped from the knob. She leaned back against the door, her arms folded, and her eyes were the Madonna eyes of gloom and reprobation. ‘So that’s what you’ve been doing,’ she said. ‘I see. You’ll cut your heart out to mend Clive’s life, won’t you, Monica? You are willing that he should believe you such another case as I am, if that will give him ease.—As to which we love best, I’m not going to answer; and I’m sure you’re not. If life doesn’t answer that sort of