She was naturally straight and composed; yet as she stood there, she had a certain lonely splendour like some soft metal burning. Among her fellow-citizens she had place and position, but she took no lead; she was always an isolated attachment of local enterprises. It was in her own house where her skill and adaptability had success. She had brought into her soul misery and martyrdom, and all martyrs are lonely and apart.
Sharp visions of what she was really flashed through Carnac's mind, and he said:
"Mother, there must be something wrong with you and me. You were naturally a great woman, and sometimes I have a feeling I might be a great man, but I don't get started for it. I suppose, you once had an idea you'd play a big part in the world?"
"Girls have dreams," she answered with moist eyes, "and at times I thought great things might come to me; but I married and got lost."
"You got lost?" asked Carnac anxiously, for there was a curious note in her voice.
She tried to change the effect of her words.
"Yes, I lost myself in somebody else's ambitions I lost myself in the storm."
Carnac laughed. "Father was always a blizzard, wasn't he? Now here, now there, he rushed about making money, humping up his business, and yet why shouldn't you have ranged beside him. I don't understand."
"No, that's the bane of life," she replied. "We don't understand each other. I can't understand why you don't marry Junia. You love her. You don't understand why I couldn't play as big a part as your father— I couldn't. He was always odd—masterful and odd, and I never could do just as he liked."
There was yearning sadness in her eyes. "Dear Carnac, John Grier is a whirlwind, but he's also a still pool in which currents are secretly twisting, turning. His imagination, his power is enormous; but he's Oriental, a barbarian."