The doctor said it was important that we should keep her soothed." But it was a law of Gabriella's nature that she never knew when she was beaten.

Failure aroused the sleeping forces within her, and when these forces were once liberated, the spasmodic efforts of Mrs.Carr and the indirect methods of Jane were alike powerless to oppose them.

At such times a faint flush rose to her pale cheeks, her eyes shone with a burning darkness, while her mouth lost its fresh young red and grew hard in outline.
"You must go to bed, mother," she repeated in a voice which Mrs.Carr would have obeyed had it issued from the wall or a piece of furniture.
Fifteen minutes later Gabriella stood authoritatively beside the bed, while her mother, with a mustard plaster at the back of her neck, obediently sipped hot milk from a teacup.

Mrs.Carr had surrendered to the conquering spirit of her daughter, but her surrender, which was unwilling and weakly defiant, gave out presently a last feeble flicker of resistance.
"Don't you think, Gabriella, we might arrange to live with Jane ?" she asked.

"It would be a saving of expense for us both, and we might be so helpful about the children." "And about Charley, too, I suppose," suggested Gabriella maliciously.
Mrs.Carr, having been born without a sense of humour, never understood the broadest joke unless it was illustrated; but even to her it became evident, after a moment's anxious thought, that Gabriella was teasing her.
"You seem to forget that he is her husband," she replied, with a pathetic clutch at her dignity, which, owing perhaps to the purple "fascinator" and the mustard plaster, she failed completely to recapture.