"I wish I could help, sweetheart," said he.
She shook her head at him.
"You do help," she replied.
From Gerald at the club, Orde sought more intimate news of what was
going on. For several days, however, the young man absented himself
from his usual haunts. It was only at the end of the week that Orde
succeeded in finding him.
"No," Gerald answered his greeting, "I haven't been around much.
I've been sticking pretty close home."
Little by little, Orde's eager questions drew out the truth of the
situation. Mrs. Bishop had shut herself up in a blind and
incredible obstinacy, whence she sallied with floods of complaints,
tears, accusations, despairs, reproaches, vows, hysterics--all the
battery of the woman misunderstood, but in which she refused to
listen to a consecutive conversation. If Carroll undertook to say
anything, the third word would start her mother off into one of her
long and hysterical tirades. It was very wearing, and there seemed
to be nothing gained from day to day. Her child had disobeyed her.
And as a climax, she had assumed the impregnable position of a
complete prostration, wherein she demanded the minute care of an
invalid in the crisis of a disorder. She could bear no faintest ray
of illumination, no lightest footfall.
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