as though she had cast off from the shore and was afloat amid the waves of a vast, swollen river—­waves that often hid the distant further bank.  She felt somehow that she was playing for all or nothing.  And though she had had immense experience of men, though it was her special business to handle men, she felt herself to be unskilled and incompetent.  The common ruses, feints, devices, guiles, chicaneries were familiar to her; she could employ them as well as any and better than most; they succeeded marvellously and absurdly—­in the common embarrassments and emergencies, because they had not to stand the test of time.  Their purpose was temporary, and when the purpose had been accomplished it did not matter whether they were unmasked or not, for the adversary-victim—­who, in any event, was better treated than he deserved!—­either had gone for ever, or would soon forget, or was too proud to murmur, or philosophically accepted a certain amount of wile as part of the price of ecstasy.  But this embarrassment and this emergency were not common.  They were a supreme crisis.

“The other lady has had notice too,” she said, and went on:  “It’s the same everywhere in this quarter.  I know not if it is the same in other districts, but quite probably it is....  It is the end.”

She saw by the lifting of his eyebrows that he was impressed, that he secretly admitted the justifiability of her summons to him.  And instantly she took a reasonable, wise, calm tone.

“It is a little serious, is it not?  I do not frighten myself, but it is serious.  Above all, I do not wish to trouble thee.  I know all thy anxieties, and I am a woman who understands.  But except thee I have not a friend, as I have often told thee.  In my heart there is a place only for one.  I have a horror of all those women.  They weary me.  I am not like them, as thou well knowest.  Thus my existence is solitary.  I have no relations.  Not one.  See!  Go into no matter what interior, and there are photographs.  But here—­not one.  Yes, one.  My own.  I am forced to regard my own portrait.  What would I not give to be able to put on my chimney-piece thy portrait!  But I cannot.  Do not deceive thyself.  I am not complaining.  I comprehend perfectly.  It is impossible that a woman like me should have thy photograph on her chimney-piece.”  She smiled, smoothing for a moment the pucker out of her brow.  “And lately I see thee so little.  Thou comest less frequently.  And when thou comest, well—­one embraces—­a little music—­and then pouf!  Thou art gone.  Is it not so?”

He said: 

“But thou knowest the reason, I am terribly busy.  I have all the preoccupations in the world.  My committee—­it is not all smooth, my committee.  Everything and everybody depends on me.  And in the committee I have enemies too.  The fact is, I have become a beast of burden.  I dream about it.  And there are others in worse case.  We shall soon be in the third year of the war.  We must not forget that.”