She had come running in a little after six o'clock to ask if we mightn't, both of us, go and dine with Hermione. I said I didn't see why Bettina shouldn't go, but we could not ask till my mother was awake; she had been having broken nights, and had just fallen asleep. So Bettina waited—nearly half an hour; still my mother slept. Then Bettina went away softly and dressed, "so as to be ready, in case."  
She came back in her white frock, and still the sleeper¹ had not waked nor stirred.
 
We went out in the hall and held a whispered conference. "She won't mind a bit," Bettina was sure. "It isn't as if it would do another time"—for the Helmstones were off again to-morrow. To clinch² the argument, Betty told me that Hermione was expecting a letter, by the last post, from a friend of Ranny's; the one chance of hearing anything for Heaven knew how long.
 
So I let Bettina go.
 
[Pg 121]
 
My mother never woke till nearly nine, and of course the first thing she asked was, "Where is Betty?"
 
I said the maid had taken her, and Lady Helmstone had promised to send her home.
 
My mother was extremely ill-pleased that Bettina had gone. I had hoped that after that profound sleep she would wake up feeling better, as I have noticed the books nearly always say is what will happen. But I have noticed, since, that people who have been sleeping heavily at some unseasonable hour will often waken not refreshed and calmed, but out of sorts, and easily fretted³ by quite small things. They seem to require time before they can collect themselves and see the waking world in true proportion.
 
"We thought you wouldn't mind," I said.
 
And why should we? Why, above all, should I, who was so much older...?
 
"To go anywhere else ... I should have been against it," I said, "but to the Helmstones—where you let her go so constantly."
 
Saying that was a mistake.
 
Did not Betty know, above all, did not I know, the feeling of all the proper sort of mothers about[Pg 122] young girls being away from home at night? Day-visiting—a totally different matter.
 
It was "the last evening for weeks," I reminded her. The Helmstones were going back to town....
 
"I am not sorry," said my mother.
 
To my surprise the circumstance that seemed to annoy her most was that I had not gone with Bettina. She spoke⁴ to me in such a way I felt the tears come into my eyes. "I stayed on your account," I said.
 
"I have told you before"—and she told me again.
 
The supper tray came up, and went down scarcely touched. I asked if I should read to her.
 
No. There had been reading enough for that day.
 
So I mended the fire and brought some sewing.
 
She lay with the candle alight on the night table, waiting, listening.
 
"Who is to be there?"
 
"Oh, just the family, I suppose."
 
"Did you ask?"
 
"No—but Betty would have said, if...."
 
"——never even asked!"[Pg 123]
 
We sat in silence.
 
"What time is it?"
 
"A quarter to ten."
 
"It is not like Bettina," she said presently. Bettina had never in her life done such a thing before.
 
I agreed she never had. If Bettina transgressed⁵ (and I admit that this was seldom), she never did so outright⁶. And she was not sly. She did not so much evade⁷ as avoid an inconvenient⁸ rule.
 
My mother remembered, no doubt, that any sin of deliberate disobedience was far more likely to be mine. "I suppose the child, not able to ask my permission, came to you."
 
Yes, she had consulted me.
 
"And you took it upon yourself——"
 
I sat there, in disgrace.
 
Presently: "Perhaps the Boynes have motored down. Or one of them."
 
I said I had no reason to think so. All the same, I couldn't help welcoming the suggestion. For the idea that the Boynes, "or one of them," might be there, seemed, oddly enough, to excuse Bettina in my mother's eyes. And she was moved[Pg 124] to make me understand why I had been reproached. We had to be far more careful than most girls. I heard about the heavy responsibility of bringing up "girls without a father."
 
I wondered in what way our father's being here would have altered the events of this particular evening. And since he had been quoted to justify⁹ anxiety, I made bold to go to him for cheer. At times of stress before, I had invoked¹⁰ my father. Not often, and all-cautiously. And never yet in vain. That night I wondered aloud what were the kind of things our father would have done.
 
"His mere¹¹ being here would make all the difference."
 
His mere name certainly did much. Once again I had cause to bless him for taking the chill out of the domestic atmosphere.
 
She talked more about him and, by implication, more about herself that night than ever before or after. She told me of the mistakes he had saved her from. The things he had warned her against. Though he was brave as a lion, she would have me believe that he was afraid of trusting people. He had said to her after a certain occurrence——
 
"What occurrence?" I interrupted.[Pg 125]
 
"No need to go into that," she said hurriedly. The point lay in his comment: "The safe course is not to trust anyone."
 
"That is very uncomfortable," I said.
 
It was better, she answered, to be less comfortable and safe, than to be more comfortable and——
 
"And what?"
 
She had stopped suddenly, and felt for her watch on the night table. "Ten minutes past. They will surely see that she starts for home by ten o'clock."
 
We sat for five minutes without speaking. I thinking of my father.
 
Then we heard the maids making the nightly round, shutting and locking up the house.
 
"Look out of the window," my mother said.
 
I could see nothing. The night was dark and still.
 
"She can't be long now," my mother said. "But go and tell them they may bolt the front door. We are sure to hear her coming up the walk."
 
She called me back. "Tell them not to forget to put the chain on the door."[Pg 126]
 
Oh, the times we had been told that!
 
Downstairs I found the house shut up and barred as for a siege. The maids had done their work and vanished. I was the only creature stirring. Upstairs the same. My mother seemed not to hear me come back into the room. She was lying with the candle-light on her face, and on her face the old listening fear. What made her look like that?
 
If there had been anything, if there had been even that old mournful sound of the wind, I could have minded less. But the night was very quiet. The house was hushed as death. And still she listened.
 
Now and then she would lift her eyelids¹² suddenly, and the intense white of the eyeballs shone, while she strained to catch some sound beyond my narrower range.
 
I sat there by the fire a long, long time. And she never spoke—until I, unable to bear the stillness any longer, fell back for that last time on the familiar Magic—my father, and the old, beautiful days. She stirred. She folded and unfolded her hands, and then took up the theme. But in a different key.[Pg 127]
 
"The more I came to understand other women's lives," she said, "the more I saw that my happiness was like the safety of a person walking a narrow plank¹³ across a chasm¹⁴." Then after a moment, she added, "A question of nice equilibrium¹⁵."
 
"I don't know how you ever bore the fall," I said.
 
"The fall?"
 
"Yes—when father was killed—and all the happiness fell down."
 
Then she said something wholly incomprehensible at the time, but which I understand better now. "Perhaps," she said, "I would have borne what you call 'the fall' less well if I hadn't known ... there are worse than tigers in the world's jungle."
 
I felt I was on the track of some truer understanding, and a secret excitement took hold of me. "How was it you came to know that?" I asked.
 
"It is a thing," she said, "that even happy women learn." Then, hurriedly, she went on: "And it ended—my happiness—before any stain or tarnish¹⁶ dimmed it. All bright and shining one moment, the next all vanished."
 
I watched the face I knew so well. Covertly,[Pg 128] I watched it. Saw the delicate lineaments a little pinched with anxiety. The eyes veiled one moment, the next lifting wide as at a sudden call.
 
"What was that?" she said.
 
I heard noth............