He stood back against the wall, looking past her out through the window that showed the grey sky of a misty day. "Well, it's true that I've got to settle about doing something soon. I can't be home like this for ever. There's a man I know in London wants me to go in for a thing with him...." "What kind of a thing, dear?" "It's to do with the export trade. Travelling about. I should like that. I'm a bit restless, I'm afraid. I should want to put some money into it, of course, but the governor will let me have something.... He wants me to go into Parliament." "Parliament?" "Yes," Falk laughed. "That's his latest idea. He was talking about it the other night. Of course, that's foolishness. It's not my line at all. I told him so." "I wouldn't like you to go away altogether," she repeated. "It would make a great difference to me." "Would it really?" He had a strange mysterious impulse to speak to her about Annie Hogg. The thought of his mother and Annie Hogg together showed him at once how impossible that was. They were in separate worlds. He was suddenly angry at the difficulties that life was making for him without his own wish. "Oh, I'll be here some time yet, mother," he said. "Well, I must get along now. I've got an appointment with a fellow." She smiled and disappeared into her room. All the way into Seatown he was baffled and irritated by this little conversation. It seemed that you could not disregard people by simply determining to disregard them. All the time behind you and them some force was insisting on places being taken, connections being formed. One was simply a bally pawn...a bally pawn.... But what was his mother thinking? Had some one been talking to her? Perhaps already she knew about Annie. But what could she know? Girls like Annie were outside her ken. What could his mother know about life? The day did not help his dissatisfaction. The fog had not descended upon the town, but it had sent as its forerunner a wet sea mist, dim and intangible, depressing because it removed all beauty and did not leave even challenging ugliness in its place.