ing visits?" protested the priest's mother. "Come now, be off with you, and tell her that Paul is tired and will go and see her to-morrow."
She spoke to the boy, but she was looking at her son: she saw his glassy eyes fixed upon the lamp, but his eyelids quivered like the wings of a moth in a candle.
Antiochus got up with an expression of deep disappointment.
"But my mother is expecting him; she thinks it's something important."
"If it was anything important he would go and tell her at once. Come, be off with you!"
She spoke sharply, and as Paul looked at her his eyes lit up again with quick resentment: he saw that his mother was afraid lest he should go out again, and the knowledge filled him with unreasoning anger. He banged the lamp down on the table again and called to Antiochus:
"We will go and see your mother."
In the hall, however, he turned and added:
"I shall be back directly, mother; don't fasten the door."
She had not moved from where she sat, but
169
