“I’m afraid poor Alice is—­”

“Is what?”

“Well, dear, a little impossible, to say the least of it.  Isn’t she?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t see anything impossible about ‘poor Alice.’  I never did.”

“It’s nice of you to say so.”

He maintained himself in silence under her long gaze.

“Steven,” she said, “you are awfully good to my people.”

She saw that she could hardly have said anything that would have annoyed him more.

He positively writhed with irritation.

“I’m not in the least good to your people.”

The words stung her like a blow.  She flushed, and he softened.

“Can’t you see, Molly, that I hate the infernal humbug and the cruelty of it all?  That poor child had a dog’s life before she married.  She did the only sane thing that was open to her.  You’ve only got to look at her now to see that she couldn’t have done much better for herself even if she hadn’t been driven to it.  What’s more, she’s done the best thing for Greatorex.  There isn’t another woman in the world who could have made that chap chuck drinking.  You mayn’t like the connection.  I don’t suppose any of us like it.”

“My dear Steven, it isn’t only the connection.  I could get over that.  It’s—­the other thing.”

His blank stare compelled her to precision.

“I mean what happened.”

“Well—­if Gwenda can get over ‘the other thing’, I should think you might.  She has to see more of her.”

“It’s different for Gwenda.”

“How is it different for Gwenda?”

She hesitated.  She had meant that Gwenda hadn’t anything to lose.  What she said was, “Gwenda hasn’t anybody but herself to think of.  She hasn’t let you in for Alice.”

“No more have you.”

He smiled.  Mary did not understand either his answer or his smile.

He was saying to himself, “Oh, hasn’t she?  It was Gwenda all the time who let me in.”

Mary had a little rush of affection.

“My dear—­I think I’ve let you in for everything.  I wouldn’t mind—­I wouldn’t really—­if it wasn’t for you.”

“You needn’t bother about me,” he said.  “I’d rather you bothered about your sister.”

“Which sister?”

For the life of her she could not tell what had made her say that.  The words seemed to leap out suddenly from her mind to her tongue.

“Alice,” he said.

“Was it Alice we were talking about?”

“It was Alice I was thinking about.”

“Was it?”

Again her mind took its insane possession of her tongue.

* * * * *

The evening dragged on.  The two chairs still faced each other, pushed forward in their attitude of polite attention and expectancy.

But the persons in the chairs leaned back as if each withdrew as far as possible from the other.  They made themselves stiff and upright as if they braced themselves, each against the other in the unconscious tension of hostility.  And they were silent, each thinking an intolerable thought.