“Why do you keep hinting at things, mother?”
“I wasn’t hinting. I know, and you will know, and they never will. I could have screamed sometimes tonight.”
“I thought you liked her.”
“Like? Oh, René, boy, if only you’d grow up and be some use to me!”
“I want to be.”
“I know that, and it’s something.”
“Are you hurt because they——?”
“I’ve been a foolish woman. I’ve been seeing more hope for George than there ever was.”
She took up the box of matches from the chimney-piece and stood fingering it. He hoped she would say more, but nothing came. The disconcerting sense of the otherness of his mother’s world played about him, and he felt helpless and rather fatuous.