Why
should she grudge--she who did not love? The sounds, like the humming
of large flies, grew deeper, more vibrating. It was the cook, in her
passion swelling out her music on the phrase,
"Be it ne-e-ver so humble,
There's no-o place like home!"
XIII
That night, Gyp slept peacefully, as though nothing had happened, as
though there were no future at all before her. She woke into misery. Her
pride would never let her show the world what she had discovered, would
force her to keep an unmoved face and live an unmoved life. But the
struggle between mother-instinct and revolt was still going on within
her. She was really afraid to see her baby, and she sent word to Betty
that she thought it would be safer if she kept quite quiet till the
afternoon.
She got up at noon and stole downstairs. She had not realized how
violent was her struggle over HIS child till she was passing the door
of the room where it was lying. If she had not been ordered to give up
nursing, that struggle would never have come. Her heart ached, but a
demon pressed her on and past the door. Downstairs she just pottered
round, dusting her china, putting in order the books which, after
house-cleaning, the maid had arranged almost too carefully, so that the
first volumes of Dickens and Thackeray followed each other on the top
shell, and the second volumes followed each other on the bottom shelf.
Pages:
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