"You know, Mother, sometimes you talk as if we were frightfully important to you. Are we really?" Edith looked astounded. "My dearest Geoffrey," she said at last, "Your father and you three are all I care about in life; all I work for and plan for. Since I married, my one thought has been to be a good wife and mother and I think I can say I've succeeded." She paused, but Geoffrey did not pay her the expected compliment. He was frowning over his thoughts. "It doesn't seem quite sound to me; tell me, Mother, haven't you ever had anything of your own in your life?" "But, darling, what could be more my own than my dear husband and children?" "I don't mean quite like that. Father is different, of course, but take the three of us. After all, we've our own lives to lead. There are all sorts of things ahead of us, belonging only to us. I really meant, haven't you any interests of your own, intellectual or social or something quite apart from us?" Edith shook her head. "No," she said gravely, "I've never been either a bluestocking or a frivolous woman. I can truthfully say that all my interests are wrapped up in you four." "It sounds dangerous to me," was Geoffrey's abrupt comment. "Dangerous, Geoffrey? My dear boy, you're all at sea. When you talk of having things in the future belonging only to you, it just shows me how little you understand. Listen, dear. You're all three part of me; I've thought about you and loved you since you were tiny, helpless babies. I've watched your characters unfold and guided you this way and that, and whatever you do in the future will always belong, in part, to me. So long as I live you'll be my little son, and I'll be sharing your life." "I see," said Geoffrey, "It's difficult to understand how you can feel like that about us, but anyhow I do see that you feel it." "Wait a few years," Edith smiled. "When you're a father you'll understand me better, though of course," she added, "a mother's claim is always the greatest." This conversation made a deep impression on Geoffrey. He was surprised to find how repugnant to him was the idea that his life was inseparably bound up with his mother's, entangled in her cloying web of affection, hopes and expectations. But he realised that he could never make his feelings clear to her; no words, however brutal, could establish him as a separate and independent entity; she would only suffer a little at the thought that Geoffrey was going through another of his "difficult times." Determined to spare himself and her that awkwardness, Geoffrey no longer rebelled against her gentle interference, but accepted it pleasantly and then quietly pursued his own ideas.