Tanney was the butler who had taken Patrick's place.
"If you insist," I said coldly. "But I shall not eat."
"Why not?"
"You wouldn't understand, mother."
"Oh, I wouldn't? Well, suppose I try," she said, and sat down. "I am
not very intellagent, but if you put it clearly I may grasp it. Perhaps
you'd better speak slowly, also."
So, sitting there in my room, while the sea throbed in tireless beats
against the shore, while the light faded and the stars issued, one by
one, like a rash on the Face of the sky, I told mother of my dreams. I
intended, I said, to write Life as it realy is, and not as supposed to
be.
"It may in places be, ugly" I said, "but Truth is my banner. The Truth
is never ugly, because it is real. It is, for instance, not ugly if a
man is in love with the wife of another, if it is real love, and not the
passing fansy of a moment."
Mother opened her mouth, but did not say anything.
"There was a time," I said, "when I longed for things that now have no
value whatever to me. I cared for clothes and even for the attentions of
the Other Sex. But that has passed away, mother. I have now no thought
but for my Career."
I watched her face, and soon the dreadfull understanding came to me.
She, to, did not understand. My literary Aspirations were as nothing to
her!
Oh, the bitterness of that moment. My mother, who had cared for me as a
child, and obeyed my slightest wish, no longer understood me. And sadest
of all, there was no way out. None. Once, in my Youth, I had beleived
that I was not the child of my parents at all, but an adopted
one--perhaps of rank and kept out of my inheritance by those who had
selfish motives. But now I knew that I had no rank or Inheritance, save
what I should carve out for myself. There was no way out. None.
Mother rose slowly, stareing at me with perfectly fixed and glassy Eyes.
"I am absolutely sure," she said, "that you are on the edge of somthing.
It may be tiphoid, or it may be an elopement. But one thing is certain.
You are not normle."
With this she left me to my Thoughts. But she did not neglect me. Sis
came up after Dinner, and I saw mother's fine hand in that. Although not
hungry in the usual sense of the word, I had begun to grow rather empty,
and was nibling out of a box of Chocolates when Sis came.