"Well, she said I'd been smoking, and I said I hadn't----"

"Had you? You look awfully green."

"Yes, I had."

"What's the good of telling lies?"

"It's no good telling the truth," Robert answered stolidly. "They only
get crosser than ever. She hadn't any right to hit me. She's not even
a relation."

"She's your step-mother."

He began to tremble again uncontrollably.

"She's n-not. Not any sort of a mother. My mother's dead."

It was the first time he had ever said it, even to himself. It threw a
chill over him, so that for a moment he stopped thinking of Edith and
his coming black revenge. He had done something that could never be
undone. He had closed and locked a great iron door in his mother's
face. "She's just a beast," he repeated stubbornly. "I'd like to kill
her."

Frances considered him with her head a little on one side. It was like
her not to enter into any argument. One couldn't tell what she was
thinking. And yet one knew that she was feeling things.