"You don't believe it?" she said.
Then she seemed to stagger. He saw a terrible drawn look in her face, and, putting out all his strength, he held her, and helped her to a sofa.
"Mother!" he exclaimed, kneeling beside her, "what is the matter?"
Voice and tone were those of another man, and Lady Tressady quailed under the change. She pointed to a small bag on a table near her. He opened it, and she took out a box, from which she swallowed something. Gradually breath and colour returned, and she began to move restlessly.
"That was nothing," she said, as though to herself—"nothing—and it yielded at once. Well, George, I knew you thought me a humbug!"
Her eyes glanced at him with a kind of miserable triumph. He looked down upon her, still kneeling, horror-struck against his will. After a life of acting, was this the truth—this terror, which spoke in every movement, and in some strange way had seized upon and infected himself?
He urgently asked her to be frank with him. And with a sob she poured herself out. It was the tragic, familiar story that every household knows. Grave symptoms, suddenly observed—the hurried visit to a specialist—his verdict and his warnings.
"Of course, he said at first I ought to give up everything and go abroad—to this very same place—Bad-what-do-you-call-it? But I told him straight out I couldn't and wouldn't do anything of the sort. I am just eaten up with engagements. And as to staying at home and lying-up, that's nonsense—I should die of that in a fortnight. So I told him to give me something to take, and that was all I could do. And in the end he quite came round—they always do if you take your own line—and said I had much better do what suited me, and take care. Besides, what do any of them know? They all confess they're just fumbling about. Now, surgery, of course—that's different. Battye"—Battye was Lady Tressady's ordinary medical adviser—"doesn't believe all the other man said. I knew he wouldn't. And as for making an invalid of me, he sees, of course, that it would kill me at once. There, my dear George, don't make too much of it. I think I was a fool to tell you."
And Lady Tressady struggled to a sitting position, looking at her son with a certain hostility. The frown on her white face showed that she was already angry with him for his emotion—this rare emotion, that she had never yet been able to rouse in him.
He could only implore her to be guided by her doctor—to rest, to give up at least some of the mill-round of her London life, if she would not go abroad. Lady Tressady listened to him with increasing obstinacy and excitability.