“Now! I hate the sight of him. I am bored beyond the power of words to tell. I have to remind myself that he is not my son, and when I do not long for my own son, who was far brighter, I long for a man of my own age to exchange ideas with, who will understand me in a degree. There are a few women with eternal youth in their souls, but I am not one of them. I am tired of all his little habits; the very expression of his face when he smokes a cigarette with his after-dinner coffee gets on my nerves. I am sick of making-up and pretending to be interested in the things that interest a young man. I want to be frankly myself—of course, I should hate growing old in any case, but I am sick of being a slave—that is what it amounts to when you don’t dare to be yourself. But I must keep up the farce lest I lose him, and the world laugh and once more remind itself of its perspicacity. I give him a long rope; he is still fond of me; my pride mounts as everything else fades away. There you are!” Catalina had hardly drawn breath during this jeremiade. She no longer had any desire to run from her own pain. After all, what had Over done but take a walk with a strange girl in her own absence? She had beaten a mole-hill as high as a mountain. But she could think of nothing to say. In the bitter misery before her there was the accent of finality, and comment would have been resented if heard. “I have told you all this,” said Mrs. Rothe, “partly because the impulse after five years of repression was irresistible, partly to show you that the great tragedy of a woman’s life is when not the man, but she, ceases to love. Better far death and desolation, and a great memory, than a nature in ruins, and the magic that would rebuild gone out of hope forever. As for you—congratulate yourself that you are able to feel and suffer as you have done to-night. Over is a better sort than most. Marry him and prove that you are of greater and finer stuff than I. I should be delighted. And if this girl should develop into a rival of a sort, welcome the stimulation, and show your mettle—” “I won’t fight over any man!” “Certainly not. Simply be more charming than she is. Nothing could be easier. You could not make the mistake of eagerness if you tried, but you can be obliviously delightful—and you know him far better than she does, and have no machine-made methods. Now go to bed and sleep, and ignore the episode in the morning. You went to bed with a headache and neither knew nor cared what Over did with himself.” XXI Thus it came about that the next morning, not long after dawn, Catalina was leaning out of her garden window humming a Spanish air when Over pushed aside his curtain and looked up expectantly.