She was seated on her favorite cane chair. At her knees stood Quincy, half leaning against them, his hands in hers, his head on a level with her eyes. And so, facing each other, they remained. There was a pathetic similarity between this aging woman and this growing boy. Their faces were long and drawn; their heads were generously moulded. The eyes of both were a deep blue-grey that reminded one in her of faded violets, in him of violets that were fresh but in a shadow. Even their mouths were alike--large, tender-pointed, mobile. And at this moment, there played upon them a tremor like the echo of a single pain. Sarah shifted her gaze. To her, this searching intercourse between them had become almost unbearable. It was as if, in this deep sympathy that had annealed them, lay infidelity toward the others to whom she was attached. For Quincy could not be the only one. In the rapt intensity which drove his spirit toward her, and in her impulse to respond just so intensely, just so wholeheartedly, it was as if, easily, it might be brought about that there should be no others. But such a blessed gift was not ordained for Quincy. Sarah repulsed her passionate inner gesture of bestowal; she beat down this mother in her which threatened to clasp Quincy to the exclusion of all else. She summoned her sense of duty, her social sense, her common sense. She looked toward Marsden for aid in her resolve. And deliberately, coldly, though she knew not the full nature of her act, she broke this blinding, seething current that threatened to submerge the pair, one with the other. She felt the presence in her eyes, in the expression of her face, of just this feeling of exclusion, of hopelessness, of irony that she found in his. She wiped all this away, forcing her mind and smiling. Within herself, she knew that this wealth was mockery for her--the gilding of a death’s-head. It would not return her husband to her, after eleven years of tolerant estrangement. But, somehow, it was wrong that her child should feel such things within his mother. It was wrong that he should understand. So she turned hypocrite and smiled. “Well, dearie,” she said, clapping his hands together within hers, “you’re goin’ to have fine clothes now, and--” She stopped. Quincy was withdrawing his hands. With a tremor of his eyelids, he turned silently and marched out of the room. Sarah remained as she had been--half forward in her chair. Her smile was frozen on her face. And all of her was similarly frozen. There had been something Quincy was not to understand. Here, then, was something beyond the understanding of Quincy’s mother. VII