"You're the one person now that influences him and you will always be so. I can see ahead well enough. Poor Roddy ... and he might have been a fine man. All the same, I admire him for it; there are things about you I could have liked if I'd wanted to find them, but we've been fighting from the beginning until now--when it's the end ..." She caught her breath, stayed for an instant struggling for words, then went on: "We can call a truce now. We don't like one another, but just at the moment you're moved a little because I'm feeble and shall be dead in a fortnight. That disturbs you.... It needn't. Some months ago a moment did come when I realized that I should die soon. I hated it--I fought and struggled with all my might ... but now that it has come it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. I regret nothing. I've had my time. I hate the new generation, the manly woman and the soft man with all this sentimental nonsense about caring for other people. Think of yourself, fight for yourself, keep up your pride--that's the only way the world's ever been run. You're a sentimentalist and you're making one of Roddy.... Nonsense it all is.... But all this isn't what I really wanted to say." She turned back and her eyes, as again they held Rachel, were softer. "Roddy's been my only weakness. I've loved that boy and he's far too good and fine for a wobbler like yourself. That's why I hated it the other day. I couldn't bear that he should see me beaten by the pair of you, both of you thinking yourself so noble with your fine confessions--not that I believe a word that you said--but it was clever of you. You _are_ clever and know how to manage men. "Yes, that hurt me, but afterwards I loved him all the better, I believe. I'd rather he hadn't written me that soppy letter, but that was your doing, of course.... But listen. After I'm gone, I want Roddy to think of me kindly. He's going to think very much what you make him. It's in your hands. You, when you've got past this sentimental moment, will hate the memory of me. It's natural that you should and I'm sure I don't mind. But I want you to leave Roddy alone. If he likes to think of me kindly, let him. Don't blacken his mind to me. I wish to feel--my only weakness I do believe--that Roddy will be fond of my memory. That rests with you." She stopped with a little final movement of her head as though, having said what had been in her mind for a long while, she was finished, absolutely, with it all, and wanted no word more with any human being. Rachel answered quietly: "You've said some rather hard things. You mustn't feel that I'd ever try to make Roddy think badly of you. That's not fair.... I'm not very proud of myself, but you don't understand me. You've always been determined not to--and perhaps, in the same way, I've not understood you. We're different generations, that's what it really is.