George handed back the embroidery. Mrs. Pendyce received it with a grateful look. It was the first time he had ever shown an interest in her work.
Mrs. Bellew had taken up a palm-leaf fan to screen her face from the fire. She said slowly:
“If we win to-morrow I'll embroider you something, George.”
“And if we lose?”
Mrs. Bellew raised her eyes, and involuntarily George moved so that his mother could not see the sort of slow mesmerism that was in them.
“If we lose,” she said, “I shall sink into the earth. We must win, George.”
He gave an uneasy little laugh, and glanced quickly at his mother. Mrs. Pendyce had begun to draw her needle in and out with a half-startled look on her face.
“That's a most haunting little song you sang, dear,” she said.
Mrs. Bellew answered: “The words are so true, aren't they?”
George felt her eyes on him, and tried to look at her, but those half-smiling, half-threatening eyes seemed to twist and turn him about as his hands had twisted and turned about his mother's embroidery. Again across Mrs. Pendyce's face flitted that half-startled look.