But I want you to be happy; you used
not to be when you were little; you were always sensitive and queer. But
you do seem happier now, and that's a good thing."
Here again this was all sensible, when taken in bits, but its aspect was
different when considered together. She looked at Michael anxiously a
moment, and then drew her chair closer to him, laying her thin, veined
hand, sparkling with many rings, on his knee.
"But it wasn't I who made you happier," she said, "and that's so
dreadful. I never made anybody happy. Your father always made himself
happy, and he liked being himself, but I suspect you haven't liked being
yourself, poor Michael. But now that you're living the life you chose,
which vexes your father, is it better with you?"
The shyness had gone from the gaze that he had seen her direct at him
at dinner, which fugitively fluttered away when she saw that it was
observed, and now that it was bent so unwaveringly on him he saw shining
through it what he had never seen before, namely, the mother-love
which he had missed all his life. Now, for the first time, he saw it;
recognising it, as by divination, when, with ray serene and untroubled,
it burst through the mists that seemed to hang about his mother's mind.
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