because you are his housekeeper?"

A red spot burned in Mrs. Vivian's cheek as she replied: "He does it
because he wants me to stay; and I have told him I cannot do so unless
he makes it possible for me to give you a comfortable, happy home here."

Lorraine's lips curled with a scorn she did not attempt to conceal, but
she only stood silently gazing across the Park.

She had already decided to make the best of her mother's deficiencies,
seeing she was almost the only relative she possessed, but she had a
natural loathing of hypocrisy, and wished she would leave facts alone
instead of attempting to gloss them over. Ever since she left school
she had been obliged to live in lodgings, because her mother would not
take the trouble to try and provide anything more of a home.

It was a little too much, therefore, that she should now allude to her
maternal solicitude because it happened to suit her purpose. She felt
herself growing hard and callous and bitter under the strain of the
early struggle to succeed, handicapped as she was; and because of one
or two ugly experiences that came in the path of such a warfare. She
was losing heart also, and feeling bitterly the stinging whip of
circumstances. As she stood gazing across the Park, some girls about
her own age rode past, returning from their morning gallop, talking and
laughing gaily together.

Lorraine found herself wondering what life would be like with her
beauty and talent if there were no vulgarly extravagant, unprincipled
mother in the background, no insistent need to earn money, no gnawing
ambition for a fame she already began to feel might prove an empty joy.