"Yes—I suppose so." As she took her letters she felt, for the first time in her life, that it would perhaps be better to lie in bed for the rest of her life and conduct the world from there.
She put the letters down and stared at the day—
"Draw the curtains again, Dorchester, and kindly ask Lady Adela if she will be so good as to come and see me in a quarter of an hour's time."
When Dorchester had gone she lay back and closed her eyes and dozed again, whilst the chocolate grew cold and the births and deaths and marriages grew aged and stale. She did not care, she did not want to see her daughter ... she did not want to see anyone, nor was there anything now in the world worth her energy or trouble. Her body, being now at ease, was called back to days, brighter days, days filled with thrilling events and thrilling people, days when the world was a world and not a dried-up cinder. Those were men ... those were women ... and then, suddenly, she was conscious first that her daughter was speaking and then that her daughter was a tiresome fool.
She sat up a little and her nightdress fell back showing a neck bony, crinkled and yellow.
"I said a quarter of an hour," she snapped.
"It is a quarter of an hour, mother," said Lady Adela.
Lady Adela hated and dreaded these morning interviews. In the first place she disliked the decorations of her mother's bedroom, thought them almost indecent, and could never be comfortable in such surroundings. She was also aware, by long experience, that her mother was always at her worst at this hour in the morning and many were the storms of temper that that absurd bed and those unpleasant black chairs had witnessed. Thirdly she knew that she herself looked her worst and was her weakest amongst these eccentricities and shadowed by this dim light.
She waited now whilst her mother fumbled her letters.
"There's your chocolate, mother," she said at last. "It'll be cold."