Not since Palla had telephoned on that unfortunate 315 night had she or Helen ever mentioned Jim. The mother, expecting his obsession to wear itself out, had been only too glad to approve the rupture.
But recently, at moments, her courage had weakened when, evening after evening, she had watched her son where he sat so silent, listless, his eyes dull and remote and the book forgotten on his knees.
A steady resentment for all this change in her son possessed Helen, varied by flashes of impulse to seize Palla and shake her into comprehension of her responsibility––of her astounding stupidity, perhaps.
Not that she wanted her for a daughter-in-law. She wanted Elorn. But now she was beginning to understand that it never would be Elorn Sharrow. And––save when the change in Jim worried her too deeply––she remained obstinately determined that he should not bring this girl into the Shotwell family.
And the amazing paradox was revealed in the fact that Palla fascinated her; that she believed her to be as fine as she was perverse; as honest as she was beautiful; as spiritually chaste as she knew her to be mentally and bodily untainted by anything ignoble.
This, and because Palla was the woman to whom her son’s unhappiness was wholly due, combined to exercise an uncanny fascination on Helen, so that she experienced a constant and haunting desire to be near the girl, where she could see her and hear her voice.
At moments, even, she experienced a vague desire to intervene––do something to mitigate Jim’s misery––yet realising all the while she did not desire Palla to relent.
As for Palla, she was becoming too deeply worried over the darkening aspects of life to care what Helen 316 thought, even if she had divined the occult trend of her mind toward herself.
One thing after another seemed to crowd more threateningly upon her;––Jim’s absence, Marya’s attitude, and the certainty, now, that she saw Jim;––and then the grave illness of John Estridge and her apprehensions regarding Ilse; and the increasing difficulties of club problems; and the brutality and hatred which were becoming daily more noticeable in the opposition which she and Ilse were encountering.