The love between Mrs. Massel and her son was a thing which never or rarely found expression in the usual endearments. It was a love much more of silences than of speech. Philip did not like kissing her, as feeling somehow that the relation between them lay too deep for the lips. It made him self-conscious, and of his love a duty and a convention instead of the sacrament too deep for any deliberate thought. Kissing in Christian families, he learned from books and his meagre experience, was a routine, where every member of the family kissed all others on recognized sections of the face at organized hours. From his mother the endearments he received were a broken word which unwittingly left her lips, a gentle wind-like caress on the head, a goodly something pressed secretly into his hand, or merely a glance from her brown and childish eyes which might rest on his own for two moments, silent with sanctity. This concealment of their affection had always come naturally to them, though it was found also to be the most discreet policy. Reb Monash had long discovered that the way to confirm impiety was to cherish the impious. He therefore expected from his wife that at those periods when he was displaying in no mild manner his objection to the latest phase of Philip's heathenism, his wife should loyally and actively second his displeasure. Any manifestation of affection towards Philip at such times caused him with so little restraint to lift his voice that (to the humiliation of his wife) it was obvious that their neighbours on both sides of the house were no less participant of his eloquence than himself. It was because during a whole hour they could sit and talk without fear, that Philip's return from school now became the brightest period of the day for both. Quite quickly Philip would switch from the day's events to the latest poetry that had fastened on his imagination. "Mamma," he said, "Listen and be very quiet. I'm going to read you something from Shelley. Oh, it's a lovely thing about a plant in a garden where there was hyacinths and roses like nymphs and about a Lady who came with osier bands and things to hold the flowers up. I say, Mamma, I say!" "_Nu_, what is it? Thy meat's not well cooked?" "No, no! I'm talking about lilies, not meat! I wonder which you are!" "What I am? I am thy mother! What more needest thou?" "Which are you? Are you the Sensitive Plant or are you the Lady in the garden? When _tatte_ starts shouting you look lonely, like the Sensitive Plant, but when he's upstairs you're all lovely like the Lady!" "Foolishness! Foolishness!" "But then the Lady died, so it can't be you, can it? And so did the Sensitive Plant, so what are we to do about it?"