He nodded. --I shall keep my silence as long as I can. Fanny looked with warm eyes at the glass of milk which Clara held for her.--I could hold it now. But I won’t. She did not speak. And Clara spoke little. Words about her comfort, words about her food, words of endearing reproof when Fanny woke too early or did not finish her toast. But already Clara was no longer herself. Fanny saw her long dark face, haggard now and pale with heavy eyes. She saw the hand that feeding trembled a bit. “You are not a mother. Yet I am your child. Just a little longer. For you are not a mother. I am a mother.” Her eyes shone happy with an unuttered promise: “I shall be a mother to you. You shall see.” But Fanny dared not speak. For she knew when her words came, there would come from within her, deeper within her, her words’ denial. Clara’s strong hands, tense like a cord, soothed her gown, clutched her shoulders, lifted her so that she could drink. “To-morrow, dear, to-morrow we bundle you into a cab. At last! Away from this dreadful place.” “Where?” “To my place,” said Clara. --I shall not speak ... yet awhile. For I am afraid of the word that will come when I speak. The girl knelt down at the bed. Her head lay on Fanny’s breast. Her hands went wistful searching to upon her eyes, upon her mouth. Her eyes were shut and her lips moist upon the gown of Fanny.... _FIVE_ CLARA Fanny sat in sun that was caressed and tamed by high blue curtains. She shadowed a mirror in her hand ... it gave her eyes her face ... with a sharp shoulder.--They used not to be sharp!... Wrist tiring with its tiny burden, arm taut and thin in the blue housegown Clara made her wear welded the silver glass with its sheer image to her face. Her eye, seeking its own secret, worked unaware through the medium of parched hand, spent wrist, peaked shoulder. No glamor was between her eye and its reflection. Her face was overlaid with shadows: subtly, terribly it was increased beyond its natural buoyance as if sudden in that Night she had danced through all of life had made invasion of her large eyes, of her delicate nose, of her mouth quick like a young leaf, and forced its burden on them. She had brought from her home the face of a girl: she looked at a face branded her own and the world’s. About this weighted face the room she sat in: cushioned, satined, a room of crude caresses. She alone was salient peering into this image of herself. She alone had mass and had dimension: and all of it upon her little features, drawing them, deforming them, making them ugly. Making them herself. --I must face this! I have become a person. She felt herself as a sharp weight set in softness. So she was upheld: but she was free. There was a bar between herself....--I am true!... and these warm falsehoods Clara had set her in.