Edwin Greene at twenty-nine was extremely good-looking in the austere manner affected by young barristers. He looked older than his age and the lines from nose to mouth were deeply carved, but the modelling of his face, with its unmistakable resemblance to his mother, was excellent. I'm damnably handicapped, he thought, and there's no way out. I'm beginning to get on now; with luck another five or six years will see me with as much work as I can tackle, but what's the use of it all? The door opened gently, and Dora came in and knelt by his side. "Oh, Edwin, dear," she said. "I never meant to get so cross; I am sorry. But I feel so ill and miserable these days, and it was just too much for me to see Edith's beautiful new house." At the recollection her mouth trembled again, and Edwin roused himself from his abstraction. "Don't worry," he said heavily. "We'll be able to have a house like that later on. But in the meantime you must try not to make yourself so wretched over things." "Oh, Edwin, I do try, but I feel so terribly ill; you can't possibly understand what I'm feeling." "I'm sure it's perfectly rotten for you, but do you think you go out enough? It's supposed to be good to take a little exercise, isn't it?" "I do go out a little of course, but I really don't like to be seen very much." "I think that's nonsense, Dora. Edith tells me that before her two babies were born she used to go out every day, and just not think of it, and she's having another now, isn't she, but she seems quite bright." Dora's face flamed. "It's all very well for Edith," she exclaimed loudly. "She's got other nice things to think about, and anyhow she's as strong as a horse. But it's very different for me." She flounced from the room for the second time, and listening to the sounds overhead, Edwin judged rightly that this second flight was final and that she would now withdraw for the night. Their son, Edwin Pilkington, was born and lived for the first five years of his life in the same small house that had provoked so many battles between his parents. Dora was an injudicious mother, prodigal of caresses, bribes, scoldings and injunctions. Nurses and nursery governesses succeeded each other so rapidly that the little boy had no sooner got used to eating, sleeping, and going for walks with one person than another was immediately substituted. This was partly because no one could put up for long with the suspicions and jealousies of such an employer and partly because Dora suffered so intensely when she saw her son developing any affection for whomsoever was in charge of him, that she immediately trumped up some excuse for getting rid of the interloper. The small Edwin, living in this state of emotional bewilderment gradually grew to rely on his quiet and repressed looking father as the one normal steady person in an otherwise chaotic existence.