Winnie's heart beat combatively, triumphantly. "I've been lying here looking at you," she said, her plaintive pout begging him to infer everything. "Bobby's still asleep." Bobby lay in his little bed relaxed like a drowned child. His lips were pale. His face damp with the heat. His shock of blonde hair fell back on the pillow away from his head. Winnie, beside her big baby, abandoned herself to a sense of dependence which she felt him to justify. "Yes? I must have slept very hard." In an effort to hide his surprise Laurence responded quickly to her overture. He sat up, smiling elaborately, and began rubbing his eyes. Winnie would not let him escape through such casualness. "Are you still angry with me, Laurie?" She lifted herself among the pillows and rested on one elbow. There was a terrible youngness about her soft, hungrily uplifted face, her thin neck, the collar bones showing below her white throat. Her eagerness was too vivid. He was conscious of her rapacious youth. It made him tired. Youth demanding of him life and more life. Winnie was ill, but there was no rest for them even in her pain. He felt old and afraid of her, as though he would never be able to get up from the couch. "Angry with you? Was I angry with you?" He covered his eyes. His lips, smiling below his fingers, were deprecating. He stood up slowly and lifted his trousers from a chair. He felt ridiculous to himself putting them on. "Laurie? Please? Don't be angry with me for wanting to see Mamma!" He was hurt without knowing how she hurt him. "Please kiss me, Laurie, dear! Don't be angry! I can't bear to have you angry with me!" Her eyes, strangely defenseless, opened softly to his. Their softness enveloped him and drew him down against the harsh little sparks of reserve that burnt in their depths. "Kiss you?" he said. He took her fingers in his and kissed them. His lips were grudging. He still smiled. "Don't accuse me of being angry with you, Winnie. I want you to have your mother back." "But I want you, too. Kiss me! _Really!_ Not like that." He leaned forward and his lips brushed hers. But she would not let him go. She was so slight, pulling him down, that he could not resist her. She pressed her mouth hard against his face. "Don't be angry with me." "I'm not angry--wasn't angry." Each word was a little shake to loosen himself from her. "You won't talk to Papa that way again?" "I won't give myself the opportunity. I won't see him again." "Oh, Laurie!" He withdrew above her, making himself paternal. "You must be sensible about this thing, Winnie. It's all right. I want you to see and be with your parents. If I avoid them it will be only for your sake. You're not well, Winnie. You're a little unreasonable."