in things.  The old lines were being rubbed out.  And Cicely, who had been in her day as exclusively snobbish as any other well-born damsel, felt now that it would not matter in the least if they remained rubbed out.  Persons who ‘did things’ by land or sea; persons who invented things; persons with ideas; persons who had the art of making others follow them into the jaws of death;—­these were going to be the aristocracy of the future.  Though the much abused aristocracy of the present hadn’t done badly either!

So she was only concerned with the emotional aspects of her brother’s state.  Was Nelly now convinced of her husband’s death?—­was that what her black meant?  And if she were convinced, and it were legally possible for her to marry again and all that—­what chance would there be for Willy?  Cicely was much puzzled by Nelly’s relation to him.  She had seen many signs, pathetic signs, of a struggle on Nelly’s side against Farrell’s influence; especially in the time immediately following her first return to the north in March.  She had done her best then, it seemed to Cicely, to do without him and to turn to other interests and occupations than those he set her, and she had failed; partly no doubt owing to her physical weakness, which had put an end to many projects,—­that of doing week-end munition work for instance—­but still more, surely, to Farrell’s own qualities.  ’He is such a charmer with women,’ thought Cicely, half smiling; ‘that’s what it is.’

By which she meant that he had the very rare gift of tenderness; of being able to make a woman feel, that as a human being, quite apart from any question of passion, she interested and touched him.  It was just sympathy, she supposed, the artistic magnetic quality in him, which made him so attractive to women, and women so attractive to him.  He was no longer a young man in the strict sense; he was a man of forty, with the prestige of great accomplishment, and a wide knowledge of life.  It was generally supposed that he had done with love-affairs, and women instinctively felt it safe to allow him a personal freedom towards them, which from other men would have offended them.  He might pat a girl’s shoulder, or lay a playful grasp on a woman’s arm, and nobody minded; it was a sign of his liking, and most people wished to be liked by him.  However he never allowed himself any half-caress of the kind towards Nelly Sarratt now; and once or twice, in the old days, before Sarratt’s disappearance, Cicely had fancied that she had seen Nelly check rather sharply one of these demonstrations of Willy’s which were so natural to him, and in general so unconscious and innocent.