Next time, though, I'll hit her. I was being quiet, wasn't I? Why can't she let me be?"
Why, indeed! Why women can't let man be has been one of the questions that neither sage nor philosopher has ever solved.
It was here that Alice wearily again took her children into her confidence, and went back to work.
Again she heard the little rustle. Again it floated to her room. At her door it paused. By the reflection in a mirror Alice could see Sara had seated herself just at the threshhold, seated herself with love and smiling patience. By straining her ears—for what Sara was saying was just below the point where one could comfortably hear it, but loud enough to make all writing impossible—Alice could hear Sara saying to herself:
"I won't disturb my darling mother. I won't go into her room and tell her how I love her. I'll let her write. I'll help my mother, my sweet, darling mother."
At this moment a lively rough-house broke out between the two boys down-stairs. One could hear Jamie's clear treble laughing happily. One could hear Robert thump-thumping around with the slap-stick humor irresistible to babies of Jamie's age. It was a lovely sound if one were not doing anything, but a noise impossible to enjoy if one were trying to write. In a pause Sara whispered virtuously:
"I don't disturb my sweet mother like the boys!"
Alice was through for the day. She was also through taking her children into her confidence. She knew, moreover, that Sara being naughty might perhaps be reckoned with, but that Sara striving to please was more implacable than the Judgment Day.
