"It's really very funny that Cyril hasn't written to you," said Matthew.
"Cyril has not been a good son," she said with sudden, solemn coldness.
"To think that he should have kept that ...!"
She wept again.
At length Matthew saw the possibility of leaving.
He felt her warm, soft, crinkled hand round his fingers.
"You've behaved very nicely over this," she said.
"And very cleverly.
In EVERY thing--both over there and here.
Nobody could have shown a nicer feeling than you've shown.
It's a great comfort to me that my son has got you for a friend."
When he thought of his escapades, and of all the knowledge, unutterable in Bursley, fantastically impossible in Bursley, which he had imparted to her son, he marvelled that the maternal instinct should be so deceived.
Still, he felt that her praise of him was deserved.
Outside, he gave vent to a 'Phew' of relief. He smiled, in his worldliest manner.
But the smile was a sham.
A pretence to himself!
A childish attempt to disguise from himself how profoundly he had been moved by a natural scene!
IV
On the night when Matthew Peel-Swynnerton spoke to Mrs. Scales, Matthew was not the only person in the Pension Frensham who failed to sleep.
When the old portress came downstairs from her errand, she observed that her mistress was leaving the mahogany retreat.
"She is sleeping tranquilly, the poor one!" said the portress, discharging her commission, which had been to learn the latest news of the mistress's indisposed dog, Fossette.
In saying this her ancient, vibrant voice was rich with sympathy for the suffering animal.
And she smiled.
She was rather like a figure out of an almshouse, with her pink, apparently brittle skin, her tight black dress, and frilled white cap.
She stooped habitually, and always walked quickly, with her head a few inches in advance of her feet.
Her grey hair was scanty.
She was old; nobody perhaps knew exactly how old.
Sophia had taken her with the Pension, over a quarter of a century before, because she was old and could not easily have found another place.
Although the clientele was almost exclusively English, she spoke only French, explaining herself to Britons by means of benevolent smiles.
"I think I shall go to bed, Jacqueline," said the mistress, in reply.
A strange reply, thought Jacqueline.
The unalterable custom of Jacqueline was to retire at midnight and to rise at five-thirty.
Her mistress also usually retired about midnight, and during the final hour mistress and portress saw a good deal of each other.
And considering that Jacqueline had just been sent up into the mistress's own bedroom to glance at Fossette, and that the bulletin was satisfactory, and that madame and Jacqueline had several customary daily matters to discuss, it seemed odd that madame should thus be going instantly to bed.
However, Jacqueline said nothing but:
"Very well, madame.
And the number 32?"
"Arrange yourself as you can," said the mistress, curtly.
"It is well, madame.
Good evening, madame, and a good night."
Jacqueline, alone in the hall, re-entered her box and set upon one of those endless, mysterious tasks which occupied her when she was not rushing to and fro or whistling up the tubes.
Sophia, scarcely troubling even to glance into Fossette's round basket, undressed, put out the light, and got into bed.
She felt extremely and inexplicably gloomy.
She did not wish to reflect; she strongly wished not to reflect; but her mind insisted on reflection--a monotonous, futile, and distressing reflection.
Povey!
Povey!
Could this be Constance's Povey, the unique Samuel Povey?
That is to say, not he, but his son, Constance's son.
Had Constance a grown-up son?
Constance must be over fifty now, perhaps a grandmother!