“Ah, yes. But that’s like choosing furniture, or moving from place to place, or any of the small things. I can win because your father yields. He doesn’t really mind. He is very kind about such things. But on matters of essential principle”—how often and often had she heard that ugly phrase, spoken as if by a dictatorial Chairman to a subservient Board?—“on matters of essential principle I don’t oppose very firmly, not now. It only makes trouble, and does no good in the end.... He always makes me feel that perhaps I’m wrong, after all. He’s a very clever man, you know, dear—your father; clever, and strong. He knows more than I do of the world.”
“Dear mother!”
“So, Margaret,” Mrs. Fane-Herbert went on, “you must fight your own battles. And be strong. And whatever I say afterwards—for I’m not often like this ... now—remember what I think.... And that I do love you.... And that compromise with truth is no good—ever. Once beaten, always beaten.”
She rustled into a chair, her white fingers clasped on her lap.
“Fear is—oh, dreadful! like a foot in the door. You can never shut it out. You never seem to be—to be quite alone again.” Then, with an expression of appeal and warning in her eyes, she added: “That’s all I can say—I think that is all I can say.”
There was more finality in her tone than was warranted by the closing of a conversation. When the door had shut softly on its latch and Margaret stood alone, she realized that her mother had spoken to her as she was not likely to speak again.
With a sensation of sadness creeping over her she went out into the garden—its cool air, its pale sunshine. As she passed the window of the room in which Ordith and her father were discussing business she thought she heard her own name—“Margaret.” Why were they speaking of her? Perhaps her imagination had cheated her. Chance anyway!
With a little toss of her head she walked down the gritty path and paused, turning her face into the wind, which blew cool on her forehead and throat. The clouds were like great tigers springing up from behind the hills. The water was flecked. The ships’ white ensigns were driven out on the wind so that they seemed stiff, like toy flags painted on tin.