Hilda turned her head slowly, and mother and daughter looked at each other. Mrs. Lessing was a woman of the world, but she was a good mother, and she read in her daughter's eyes what every mother has to read sooner or later. It was as one woman to another, and not as mother to daughter, that she continued lamely: "Well, Hilda, what do you make of it all? What are you going to do?"
The girl looked away again, and a silence fell between them. Then she said, speaking in short, slow sentences:
"I will tell you what I make of it, mother. Peter's gone beyond me, I think, now, that I have always feared a little that he might. Of course, he's impetuous and headstrong, but it is more than that. He feels differently from me, from all of us. I can see that, though I don't understand him a bit. I thought" (her voice faltered) "he loved me more. He knows how I wanted him to get on in the Church, and how I would have helped him. But that's nothing to him, or next to nothing. I think he doesn't love me at all, mother, and never really did."
Mrs. Lessing threw her head back. "Then he's a fool, my dear," she said emphatically. "You're worth loving; you know it. I should think no more about him, Hilda."
Hilda's hands tightened round her knees. "I can't do that," she said.
Mrs. Lessing was impatient again. "Do you mean, Hilda, that if he persists in this—this madness, if he gives up the Church, for example, you will not break off the engagement? Mind you, that is the point. Every young man must have a bit of a fling, possibly even clergymen, I suppose, and they get over it. A sensible girl knows that. But if he ruins his prospects—surely, Hilda, you are not going to be a fool?"
The word had been spoken again. Peter had had something to say on it, and now the gods gave Hilda her chance. She stretched her fine hands out to the fire, and a new note came into her voice.
"A fool, mother? Oh no, I shan't be a fool. A fool would follow him to the end of the world. A fool of a woman would give him all he wants for the sake of giving, and be content with nothing in return. I see that. But I'm not made for that sort of foolery…. No, I shan't be a fool."
Mrs. Lessing could not conceal her satisfaction. "Well, I am sure I am very glad to hear you say it, and so would your father be. We have not brought you up carefully for nothing, Hilda. You are a woman now, and I don't believe in trying to force a woman against her will, but I am heartily glad, my dear, that you are so sensible. When you are as old as I am and have a daughter of your own, you will be glad that you have behaved so to-night."
Hilda got up, and put her hands behind her head, which was a favourite posture of hers. She stood looking down at her mother with a curious expression on her face. Mrs. Lessing could make nothing of it; she merely thought Hilda "queer"; she had travelled farther than she knew from youth.