I've always suspected that early rising in early life makes one nervous.

Clothilde is having your breakfast brought up." "All right." "I am feeling very old to-day, Amory," she would sigh, her face a rare cameo of pathos, her voice exquisitely modulated, her hands as facile as Bernhardt's.

"My nerves are on edge--on edge.

We must leave this terrifying place to-morrow and go searching for sunshine." Amory's penetrating green eyes would look out through tangled hair at his mother.

Even at this age he had no illusions about her.
"Amory." "Oh, _yes_." "I want you to take a red-hot bath as hot as you can bear it, and just relax your nerves.