"Good-bye," she said; her tone was so gentle that he did not remark the absence of the caress. "Don't go working too hard, Phil!" He patted the hand reassuringly, and let himself out. Then the hand crept slowly up to her eyes, and she wiped some tears away. The wool-work drooped to her lap, and she sat recalling a little boy who had been used to talk of the wondrous things he was going to do for "mother" when he became a man, and who now had become a man, living for a strange woman, and full of a love which "mother" might only guess. She could not feel quite so cordial to Mary as she had done. To think of her holding her son's confidence, while she herself was left to speculate, made the need for surmises seem harder. And Philip was unhappy: her companion must be indifferent to him; nothing but that could account for the unhappiness, or for the reservation. She could have forgiven her engrossing his affections--in time; but her indifference was more than she could forgive. Still, this was the woman he loved--and she endeavoured to hide her resentment, as she had hidden her suspicions. Their intercourse during the next week was less free than usual, nevertheless. Perhaps the resentment was less easy to hide, or perhaps Mary's nervousness made her unduly sensitive, but there were pauses which seemed to her significant of condemnation. She was exceedingly uncomfortable during this week. Sometimes she was only deterred from proclaiming what had happened and appealing to the other's fairness to exonerate her, by the recollection that it was, after all, just possible that the avowal might have the effect of transforming a bush into an officer. She could not venture to repeat the retirement to her room the next time the doctor came. Nearly a fortnight had gone by. And she forced herself to turn to him with a few remarks. He was not the man to disguise his feelings successfully by a flow of small-talk; his life had not qualified him for it; and it was an ordeal to him to sit there in the presence of Mary and witness attempts in which he perceived himself unqualified to co-operate. His knowledge that the simulated ease should have originated with himself rather than with her made his ineptitude seem additionally ungracious, and he feared she must think him boorish, and disposed to parade his disappointment for the purpose of exciting her compassion.