How fantastic these theories of fire and passion must seem, he amused himself by considering, to any one who knew his mother only from the outside.She was sitting to-day as always in her little pink and white chintz drawing-room, a bright fire burning and a canary singing in a cage beside the window.The rest of the house was ugly and strangely uninhabited as though the Warlocks had merely pitched their tents for a night and were moving forward to-morrow, but this little room, close, smelling of musk and sweet biscuits (a silver box with lemon-shaped biscuits in it stood on a little table near the old lady), with its pretty pink curtains, its canary, and its heavy and softly closing door, was like a place enclosed, dedicated to the world, and ruled by a remorseless spirit of comfort.
Mrs.Warlock was only sixty years of age, but she had, a number of years ago, declared herself an invalid, and now never, unless she drove on a very fine afternoon, left the house.Whether she were truly an invalid nobody knew; she presented certainly a most healthy appearance with her shell-pink cheeks, her snow-white hair, her firm bosom rising and falling with such gentle regularity beneath the tight and shining black silk that covered it, her clear bright eyes like shining glass.She always sat in a deep arm-chair covered with the chintz of the curtains and filled with plump pillows of pink silk.A white filmy shawl was spread over her knees, at her throat was a little bright coquettish blue bow that added, amazingly, to the innocent charm of her old age.On her white hair, crinkled and arranged as though it were some ornament, not quite a wig but still apart from the rest of her body, she wore a lace cap.She was fond of knitting; she made warm woollen comforters and underclothing for the children of the poor.She was immensely fond of conversation, being of an inquisitive nature.But above all was she fond of eating.This covetousness of food had grown on her as her years had increased.The thought of foods of various kinds filled many hours of her day, and the desire for pleasant things to eat was the motive of many of her most deliberate actions.She cherished warmly and secretly this little lust of hers.None of the family was aware of the grip that the desire had upon her nor of the speed with which the desire was growing.She did not ask directly for the things that she liked, but manoeuvred with little plots and intrigues to obtain them.The cook in the Warlock household had neither art nor science at her disposal, but as it happened old Mrs.Warlock lusted after very simple things.She loved rice-pudding; her heart beat fast in her breast when she thought of the brown crinkly skin of the rich warm milk of a true rice-pudding; also she loved hot buttered toast, very buttery so that it soaked your fingers; also beef-steak pudding with gravy rich and dark and its white covering thick and heavy; she also loved hot and sweet tea and the little cakes that Amy sometimes bought, red and yellow and pink, held in white paper--also plum-pudding, which, alas! only came at Christmastime and wedding-cake, which scarcely ever came at all.