The fact that Edwin was only a child of ten did not deter her from reproaching him bitterly when he wriggled, embarrassed, from her embrace, and stood sullenly beside her, anxious only to get away from an emotional situation with which he could not cope. Exasperated by what she took to be indifference, she would stress still further the note of affection. "You're all I've got now, Edwin, and it seems as though you don't care about me at all. Surely you can tell me that you'll love me and look after me now your father's gone." Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, staring at the carpet in an agony of uneasy bewilderment, Edwin would mutter: "Of course I shall." "Is that all you can say?" Dora would cry, the familiar note of hysteria creeping into her voice. "Leave me then; I'm better alone than with a son who doesn't love his mother." Guiltily conscious that something was expected of him, but not knowing what it was, Edwin would seize his opportunity to escape from the room, and the whole scene would be renewed later. In time, however, Dora found it impossible to feed the flames of despair on Edwin's mute discomfort, and she resigned herself to a state of aggrieved self-pity. A year or two after his father's death, Edwin, who had grown wary and perceptive, realised that his mother's greatest pleasure in life was to invite a few women friends to tea, to play bridge, or to spend the evening, and then to embark on a prolonged and enjoyable narration of her grievances; which was sure to be followed by an equally prolonged recitation of similar grievances endured by one or other of the ladies present. Conversation would continue along these lines until everyone had exposed to their satisfaction, the more intimate difficulties, annoyances and sorrows of their private life. Expressions of sympathy having been exchanged, the depressing coterie would break up, to meet again a few days hence and go over the same ground with undiminished ardour. On one occasion Edwin found himself involved in a painful scene not only with his mother, but with one of his mother's friends, a Mrs. Pratt, whom he instinctively disliked and distrusted. It was during the summer holidays of 1917. For the last few years the person with whom he had most in common, apart from his school-friends, was old Mrs. Greene, his father's mother. He was invited regularly to spend part of his holidays with his grandparents in the country, and the tranquil undisturbed atmosphere of their house was very welcome to him. He was on terms of easy intimacy with both grandparents; they accepted him unquestioningly without any of these probing enquiries into the state of his emotions which made life at home so difficult for the rapidly developing boy.