“Guilty of despising other colour schemes that don’t tone with ours. I suppose each generation is more or less colour-blind in its sympathies. Why, she was just a child—just a child that had never grown up, and these were her toys. Oh, I understand it now! I understood it when I looked at her child’s face as she lay dead. The curse of being one of the clever little people!” “You are not that.” She lay back and covered her eyes with her hands. It was a still grief, the grief of a pride that humbles itself and makes no mere empty outcry. Canterton watched her, still as a statue. But his eyes and mouth were alive, and within him the warm blood seemed to mount and tremble in his throat. “I think she was quite happy.” “Did I do very much?” “She was very proud of you in her way. I could see that.” “Don’t!” “You are making things too deep, too difficult. You say, ‘She was just a child.’” Her hands dropped from her face. “Yes.” “Your moods passed over her and were not noticed. Some people are not conscious of clouds.” She mused. “Yes, but that does not make me feel less guilty.” “It might make you feel less bitter regret.” Canterton sat back in his chair, spreading his shoulders and drawing in a deep breath. “Have you wired to your relatives?” “They don’t exist. Father was an only son, and mother had only one brother. He is a doctor in a colliery town, and one of the unlucky mortals. It would puzzle him to find the train fare. He married when he was fifty, and has about seven children.” “Very well, you will let me do everything.” He did not speak as a petitioner, but as a man who was calmly claiming a most natural right. She glanced at him, and his eyes dominated hers. “But—I can’t bother you——” “I can arrange everything. If you will tell me what you wish—what your mother would have wished.” “It will have to be very quiet. You see, we——” “I understand all that. Would you like Lynette to come and see you?” “Yes, oh, yes! I should like Lynette to come.” He pondered a moment, staring at the carpet with its crude patterning of colours, and when again he began to speak he did not raise his head to look at her. “Of course, this will make no difference to the future?” “I don’t know.” “Tell me exactly.” “All mother’s income dies with her. I have the furniture, and a little money in hand.” “Would you live on here, or take rooms?” She hesitated. “Perhaps.” His eyes rose to meet hers. “I want you to stay. We can work together. I’m not inventing work for you. It’s there. It has been there for the last two or three years.” He spoke very gently, and yet some raw surface within her was touched and hurt. Her mouth quivered with sensitive cynicism. “A woman, when she is alone, must get money—somehow. It is bitter bread that many of us have to eat.” “I did not mean to make it taste bitter.” Her mouth and eyes softened instantly. “You? No. You are different. And that——” “Well?” “And that makes it more difficult, in a way.”