Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/183

Rh "Then what's the matter?"

"The matter is that I'm nervous, and that your stolidity makes me so. I want you to behave to me as if you cared—and I want you still more to behave so to her." Paul made, in his seat, a movement in which his companion caught, as she supposed, the betrayal of a sense of oppression; and at this her own worst fear broke out. "Oh, don't tell me you don't care—for if you do I don't know what I shall do to you!" He looked at her with an air he sometimes had, which always aggravated her impatience, an air of amused surprise, quickened to curiosity, that there should be in the world organisms capable of generating heat. She had thanked God, through life, that she was cold-blooded, but now it seemed to face her as a Nemesis that she was a volcano compared with her son. This transferred to him the advantage she had so long monopolised, that of always seeing, in any relation or discussion, the other party become the spectacle, while, sitting back in her stall, she remained the spectator and even the critic. She hated to perform to Paul as she had made others perform to herself; but she determined on the instant that, since she was condemned to do