She looked wearily across at Joan. The child was irritating to her as she had always been. She had never, in any case, cared for her own sex, and now, as so frequently with women who are about to plunge into some passionate situation, she regarded every one she saw as a potential interferer. She despised women as most women in their secret hearts do, and especially she despised Joan. "You'd better go up to bed, dear. It's half-past ten." Without a word Joan got up, came across the room, kissed her mother, went to the door. Then she paused. "Mother," she said, hesitating, and then speaking timidly, "is father all right?" "All right, dear?" "Yes. He doesn't look well. His forehead is all flushed, and I overheard some one at the Sampsons' say the other day that he wasn't well really, that he must take great care of himself. Ought he to?" "Ought he what?" "To take great care of himself." "What nonsense!" Mrs. Brandon turned back to her book impatiently. "There never was any one so strong and healthy." "He's always worrying about something. It's his nature." "Yes, I suppose so." Joan vanished. Mrs. Brandon sat, staring before her, her mind running with the clock--tick-tick-tick-tick--and then suddenly jumping at the mellow liquid gurgle that it sometimes gave. Would her husband come in and say good-night? How she had grown, during these last weeks, to loathe his kiss! He would stand behind her chair, bending his great body over her, his red face would come down, then the whiff of tobacco, then the rough pressure on her cheek, the hard, unmeaning contact of his lips and hers. His beautiful eyes would stare beyond her, absently into the room. Beautiful! Why, yes, they were famous eyes, famous the diocese through. How well she remembered those years, long ago, when they had seemed to speak to her of every conceivable tenderness and sweetness, and how, when he thus had bent over her, she had stretched up her hand and found the buttons of his waistcoat and pushed her fingers in, stroking his shirt and feeling his heart thump, thump, and so warm beneath her touch. Life! Life! What a cheat! What a cheat! She jumped from her chair, letting the book drop upon the floor, and began to pace the room. And why should not this, too, cheat her once again? With the tenderness, the poignancy with which she now looked upon Morris so once she had looked upon Brandon. Yes, that might be. She would cheat herself no longer. But she was older now. This was the last chance to live--definitely, positively the last. It was not the desire to be loved, this time, that drove her forward so urgently as the desire to love. She knew that, because Falk would do. If Falk would stay, would let her care for him and mother him and be with him, she would drive Morris from her heart and brain.