But there were moments, too, when her tenderness flared into startling outbursts of bleak, cutting anger, giving way in the end to floods of hysterical tears.  A couple of such tempests formed part of Keith’s earliest reliable memories.

VII

As a rule Keith slept far too soundly to be aroused by anything.  One night, however, there was so much loud talking in the room that he woke up completely.  For a while he lay quite still, but with wide-open eyes and ears.

The big lamp had been placed on the washstand back of the chaiselongue on which he was lying, evidently in order to prevent its light from falling on his face.

His mother was seated, fully dressed, on the edge of the bed across the room.  Her face was white as snow.  Her eyes blazed with a sort of cold fire.  Her whole body seemed to tremble with a feeling so tense that he could not find words for it.

The father was leaning far backwards on an ordinary chair, with his outstretched right arm resting on the dining table.  His face was flushed and the thick fringe of black hair about the bald top of his head was slightly disordered.  He tried to smile, but the smile turned into a grin.  When he spoke, his voice was a little thick.

“I can’t keep entirely away from my comrades.” he said.  “They think already that I am too stuck up to associate with them.  I haven’t been out for two weeks.  I haven’t had a drop more tonight than I can stand.  And it isn’t twelve o’clock yet.”

All of a sudden Keith saw the cold, angry light go out of his mother’s eyes.  Her face twisted convulsively.  She sank into a heap on the bed, sobbing as if her heart would break then and there.

“Carl,” she screamed between two sobs.  “You’ll kill me if you talk like that to me!”

“Like that,” he repeated in a stunned toneless voice.  Then his face flushed almost purple.  A hard look came into his eyes, and he rose so abruptly that the chair upset behind him.  At the same time he brought down his fist with such violence that the table nearly toppled over.

“I’ll be damned if I stand this kind of thing one moment longer,” he shouted hoarsely.

But even as he spoke, his eyes fell on the boy.  As if by magic, his self-control returned.

“The boy is awake,” he said in his usual tone of stern reserve.

There was a moment’s silence.  A few more sobs came from the mother.  Then she sat up, wiped her eyes, and spoke in a tone that was almost calm: 

“Go to sleep again, Keith.  Your father and I were merely talking about some things that you don’t understand yet.”

When she saw that the boy was crying, she came over to him, kneeled down beside him and put her arms about him.  Soon her kisses and her soothing words had their wonted effect, and he dropped off once more into the deep, deathlike slumber of childhood.