It was simple—almost commonplace, the meeting and the short talk between the weary woman and her son; as every interview of intense and indeterminable human tragedy is apt to be. There are no fripperies in true tragedy, but little romance, no poetry. The rocks of life are hard and naked. Not even a stunted lichen can grow on such soilless barrenness.
But this was a very different reckoning from that with his father, jocund and magnificently indifferent to details. Basil realized, of course, that settling up with his mother must be—very different.
She was dressed for going out, elaborately dressed; for she and Ah Wong had decided that she must be seen about Hong Kong to-day, carefully dressed and debonair.
She sat in a low chair beside her dressing-table, her long gloves and her purse of gold mesh at her hand. And because her reputation, and Basil’s, were at stake, she and Ah Wong between them had contrived to banish the yesterday’s ravages from her face—almost.
Basil looked shockingly ill. Any eyes less self-satisfied than a Robert Gregory’s must have seen it.
“You should go and lie down,” his mother greeted him.
“Yes, I must,” he nodded, “when you’ve done with me.”
Ah Wong went out and closed the door.
Florence Gregory waited then for him to begin. It was the first unkindness she had ever done him. But she was very, very tired. And in the sleepless watches of the night, she had seen clearly Wu Li Chang’s point of view, and not altogether without some sharp, acrid conviction that it had some justice on its side—rough, terrible, primeval, barbaric, but still undeniable justice of a sort.
Mrs. Gregory waited for her son to speak, and he did not speak soon.