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It’s almost impossible to make Copper happy, nowadays. He’s got nothing to do—that isn’t his fault,any number of men of his age are in the same boat —and he sees me earning all the money, such as it is—and the place is mine really, of course—though I try never to let him feel it. I don’t see how he can help minding. Only, it takes the form of making him ungracious—unkind even. I’m sure that somewhere, somehow, I’ve made some dreadful mistake in our relationship.”
    â€œI don’t think you ought to blame yourself,” said Frances, startled. “Why should it be your fault? You work so hard—you’re such a wonderful mother to the children. Everything depends on you.”
    â€œI know,” said Claudia sadly. “It’s quite true. The whole thing depends on me. Oh, Frances! what would become of them all if anything were to happen to me?”
    â€œThey’re growing up, though,” ventured her friend. “It won’t be so much responsibility—for you I mean—later on.”
    â€œI know. And I’ve told them, from the very beginning, that they’ll have to work—to look after themselves. That’s why I’m spending all the money I can afford—and more—on giving them the very best education.”
    â€œIt’s all one can do for them, nowadays.”
    â€œYes, and to teach them to think for themselves. I’ve tried so hard to do that. I don’t want to make the mistakes with them that poor mother, with the best intentions, made with us.”
    â€œHow very little your mother has changed.”
    â€œPhysically, you mean. Yes, she alters wonderfully little. Mentally, of course, she’s been staticfor years. You’ll find that she disapproves utterly of the way I bring up the children.”
    â€œBut isn’t that the prerogative of grandparents?” Mrs Ladislaw asked smiling a little. She didn’t want to think that Mrs Peel too was adding her quota to the burdens borne by her friend.
    Claudia did not respond to the lighter tone. There was something, even, a little portentous in her unsmiling reply.
    â€œI don’t want my children to take their values from her in any way. I want them free from sentimentality—from her kind of sloppy, easy thinking. Mother—like all that generation—would like them to see everything
couleur de rose.
I don’t want that. I want them to face facts—as I do.”
    â€œThey will—of course they will. How could they help it? Claudia, do you know—I somehow never thought you’d be such a wonderful mother.”
    Claudia smiled then—a quick flashing of eyes and mouth.
    â€œBut we don’t know that I am!” she cried gaily. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Sylvia is only nineteen, and the other two aren’t grown-up. Taffy might turn out—oh, anything.”
    â€œBut not sloppy or sentimental.”
    â€œNo. Not that, certainly. She’s got a funny, hard streak in her. I don’t really feel I understand her as I do the other two.”
    â€œYou don’t?” said Frances, bewildered by this strange candour. Never before had she heard a mother openly admitting that she did not understand one of her children.
    â€œI don’t think I do,” Claudia repeated calmly.
    â€œShe’s not at all like you, is she?”
    â€œShe’s not like Copper or any of his family, either,” Claudia answered quickly. “Of course, I’ve got to face the possibility that she feels—antagonistic—towards me. A great many girls do feel like that about their mother, although very often they don’t know it.”
    â€œBut if so it will pass,” was all that Frances could say.
    â€œPerhaps, and perhaps not. Most likely
not,
I should say,” Claudia returned judicially. “The thing that matters is that Taffy should develop along her