CHAPTER XXXI
Duly shaved with one of Stanley's razors, bathed, and breakfasted, Felix was on the point of getting into the car to return to Joyfields when he received a message from his mother: Would he please go up and see her before he went?
He found her looking anxious and endeavoring to conceal it.
Having kissed him, she drew him to her sofa and said: “Now, darling, come and sit down here, and tell me all about this DREADFUL business.” And taking up an odorator she blew over him a little cloud of scent. “It's quite a new perfume; isn't it delicious?”
Felix, who dreaded scent, concealed his feelings, sat down, and told her. And while he told her he was conscious of how pathetically her fastidiousness was quivering under those gruesome details—fighting with policemen, fighting with common men, prison—FOR A LADY; conscious too of her still more pathetic effort to put a good face on it. When he had finished she remained so perfectly still, with lips so hard compressed, that he said:
“It's no good worrying, Mother.”
Frances Freeland rose, pulled something hard, and a cupboard appeared. She opened it, and took out a travelling-bag.
“I must go back with you at once,” she said.
“I don't think it's in the least necessary, and you'll only knock yourself up.”
“Oh, nonsense, darling! I must.”