“You thought what it suited you to think,” Hubert said. “No, I didn’t drive John out. We never got along, but that was because you made it your business to see that we didn’t get along. You drove him out yourself,” Hubert said. “It was to get away from you. That was all he wanted. You wouldn’t even let him go to school by himself. He couldn’t go on the tram by himself like the other boys until the priests told you to leave him alone. And when he went to work, you were down there at lunchtime half the time, weren’t you? He got so that he was ashamed to be seen with you. A month before he left, he told me he was leaving, but he didn’t tell you till the very last minute, because he knew you’d find some way to stop him, and he was bound and determined to go. How do you like that? Tell me, how do you like that little piece of information? He told me first.”

“If he got ashamed of me he got it from you,” Rose said.

“Oh, of course you’d have to say that,” said Hubert. “Of course you can’t face facts. But I’ve had to face facts. He was sick of you and I’m sick of you, sick of your long face and your moans and sighs — I wish you’d get out of the room, I wish you’d go, go on, go away. I don’t want any tea. All I want is not to have to look at you anymore this evening. Will you go?”

“Oh, I will,” Mrs. Derdon said. “I’ll go. Indeed I will. Only to get away from you, that’s all I ask.”

She hurried out into the hall. She felt very free. She felt very independent. In that untrammeled moment she surveyed herself in the hall mirror as she adjusted her hat and stuck her two mother-of-pearl hatpins through her thick, light brown hair. For the first time for many years she saw the color of her own eyes. They were a clouded green, and as she stared at them she saw that they were filling up with tears.