Katherine had risen, and stood facing her mother. With a swift consternation, as though someone had shouted some terrifying news into her ear, she realised that her mother was a stranger to her. She had imagined many, many times what this interview would be. She had often considered the things that she would say and the very words in which she would arrange her sentences. But always in her thoughts she had had a certain picture of her mother before her. She had seen an old woman, old as she had been on that night when she had slept in Katherine’s arms, old as she had been at that moment when Katherine had first told her of her engagement to Philip. And now she thought this old woman would face her, maintaining her pride but nevertheless ready, after the separation of these weeks, to break down before the vision of Katherine’s own submission.
Katherine had always thought: “Dear Mother. We must have one another. She’ll feel that now. She’ll see that I’m exactly the same....”
How different from her dreams was this figure. Her mother seemed to-day younger than Katherine had ever known her. She stood there, tall, stern, straight, the solidity of her body impenetrable, inaccessible to all tenderness, scornful of all embraces. She was young, yes, and stronger.
At the first sight of Katherine she had moved back as though she would leave the room. Then she stayed by the door. She was perfectly composed.
“Why have you come?” she said.
At the cold indifference of that voice Katherine felt a little pulse of anger beat, far away, in the very heart of her tenderness.
She moved forward with a little gesture.
“Mother, I had to come. It’s Grandfather’s birthday. I couldn’t believe that after all these weeks you wouldn’t be willing to see me.”
She stopped. Her mother said nothing.
Katherine came nearer. “I’m sorry—terribly sorry—if I did what hurt you. I felt at the time that it was the only thing to do. Phil was so miserable, and I know that it was all for my sake. It wasn’t fair to let him go on like that when I could prevent it. You didn’t understand him. He didn’t understand you. But never, for a single instant, did my love for you change. It never has. It never will. Mother dear, you believe that—you must believe that.”