He looked into his mother's eyes very quietly. "You see," he went on deliberately disregarding her question, "I'm beached. I'm aground. I'm spoilt now for the old researches--spoilt altogether. And I don't like this life I'm leading. I detest it. While I was struggling it had a kind of interest. There was an excitement in piling up the first twenty thousand. But _now_--! It's empty, it's aimless, it's incessant...." He paused. She turned to the tea-things, and lit the spirit lamp under the kettle. It seemed a little difficult to do, and her hand trembled. When she turned on him again it was with an effort. "Does Marjorie like the life you are leading?" she asked, and pressed her lips together tightly. He spoke with a bitterness in his voice that astonished her. "Oh, _she_ likes it." "Are you sure?" He nodded. "She won't like it without you." "Oh, that's too much! It's her world. It's what she's done--what she's made. She can have it; she can keep it. I've played my part and got it for her. But now--now I'm free to go. I will go. She's got everything else. I've done my half of the bargain. But my soul's my own. If I want to go away and think, I will. Not even Marjorie shall stand in the way of that." She made no answer to this outburst for a couple of seconds. Then she threw out, "Why shouldn't Marjorie think, too?" He considered that for some moments. "She doesn't," he said, as though the words came from the roots of his being. "But you two----" "We don't talk. It's astonishing--how we don't. We don't. We can't. We try to, and we can't. And she goes her way, and now--I will go mine." "And leave her?" He nodded. "In London?" "With all the things she cares for." "Except yourself." "I'm only a means----" She turned her quiet face to him. "You know," she said, "that isn't true."... "No," she repeated, to his silent contradiction. "I've watched her," she went on. "You're _not_ a means. I'd have spoken long ago if I had thought that. Haven't I watched? Haven't I lain awake through long nights thinking about her and you, thinking over every casual mood, every little sign--longing to help--helpless." ... She struggled with herself, for she was weeping. "_It has come to this_," she said in a whisper, and choked back a flood of tears. Trafford stood motionless, watching her. She became active. She moved round the table. She looked at the kettle, moved the cups needlessly, made tea, and stood waiting for a moment before she poured it out. "It's so hard to talk to you," she said, "and about all this.... I care so much. For her. And for you.... Words don't come, dear.... One says stupid things." She poured out the tea, and left the cups steaming, and came and stood before him. "You see," she said, "you're ill. You aren't just. You've come to an end. You don't know where you are and what you want to do. Neither does she, my dear. She's as aimless as you--and less able to help it. Ever so much less able."