Falk Brandon knew quite well that his mother was watching him.

It was a strange truth that until this return of his from Oxford he had
never considered his mother at all. It was not that he had grown to
disregard her, as do many sons, because of the monotonous regularity of
her presence. Nor was it that he despised her because he seemed so vastly
to have outgrown her. He had not been unkind nor patronising nor
contemptuous--he had simply not yet thought about her. The circumstances
of his recent return, however, had forced him to consider every one in the
house. He had his secret preoccupation that seemed so absorbing and
devastating to him that he could not believe that every one around him
would not guess it. He soon discovered that his father was too cock-sure
and his sister too innocent to guess anything. Now he was not himself a
perceptive man; he had, after all, seen as yet very little of the world,
and he had a great deal of his father's self-confidence; nevertheless, he
was just perceptive enough to perceive that his mother was thinking about
him, was watching him, was waiting to see what he would do....

His secret was quite simply that, for the last year, he had been
devastated by the consciousness of Annie Hogg, the daughter of the
landlord of "The Dog and Pilchard." Yes. devastated was the word. It would
not be true to say that he was in love with her or, indeed, had any
analysed emotion for her--he was aware of her always, was disturbed by her
always, could not keep away from her, wanted something in connection with
her far deeper than mere love-making--

What he wanted he did not know. He could not keep away from her, and yet