CHAPTER FORTY
"Are you sure you feel all right, mummy? You don't look as if you had slept very well."
"Nonsense, dear. I slept at least five hours straight off and you know——"
"Oh, yes, I know. Napoleon never had more than four hours and Saint Catherine or Winifred or somebody else did mighty works on ten minutes. But they're not you."
Jean laid her arm across her mother's shoulders and drew her close. "You won't be silly, will you? If you don't feel well you'll 'phone me? There's nothing very special to-day."
Martha's face, smaller and frailer than ever, glowed with love satisfied, and for a moment she closed her eyes in the old spirit of humble gratitude. But Jean, looking down, saw only the thin hair, white now, and her throat contracted.
"Jean, sometimes I feel as if all my life, this last year has been waiting for me, one whole year, just exactly as it has been. Now that I waste so much time just sitting round, I think of it a lot."
The lines along the corners of Jean's mouth deepened and she looked old and tired. But her voice had the same brusque quality with which she had always forestalled any emotional demand. If the year had been wonderful to Martha, it had not been useless, and Jean was grateful.
"Of course, if you are trying to tell me, Martha Norris, that I used to bore you to death——"
"Don't be flippant, Jean. You know perfectly well——"