to the paralytic's house, Mrs. Lessways slowly shut the door and bolted
it, and then said to Hilda:

"Well, my girl, I do think you might have tried to show just a little
more feeling!"

They were close together in the narrow lobby, of which the heavy pulse
was the clock's ticking.

Hilda replied:

"You surely aren't serious about collecting those rents yourself, are
you, mother?"

"Serious? Of course I'm serious!" said Mrs. Lessways.


II

"Why shouldn't I collect the rents myself?" asked Mrs. Lessways.

This half-defiant question was put about two hours later. In the
meantime no remark had been made about the rents. Mother and daughter
were now at tea in the sitting-room. Hilda had passed the greater part
of those two hours upstairs in her bedroom, pondering on her mother's
preposterous notion of collecting the rents herself. Alone, she would
invent conversations with her mother, silencing the foolish woman with
unanswerable sarcastic phrases that utterly destroyed her illogical
arguments. She would repeat these phrases, repeat even entire
conversations, with pleasure; and, dwelling also with pleasure upon her