Dorothy was sure that “Booster’s” wife was a bad lot.

“Nicky said she was awfully decent.”

“He’d have to.  He couldn’t do it by halves.”

“They couldn’t have sent him down, unless they’d sifted the thing to the bottom.”

“I daresay they’ve sifted all they could, the silly asses.”

She could have killed them for making her father suffer.  The sight of his drawn face hurt her abominably.  She had never seen him like that.  She wasn’t half so sorry for her mother who was sustained by a secret, ineradicable faith in Nicky.  Why couldn’t he have faith in Nicky too?  Was it because he was a man and knew that these things happened?

“Daddy—­being sent down isn’t such an awful calamity.  It isn’t going to blast his career or anything.  It’s always touch and go. I might have been sent down any day.  I should have been if they’d known about me half what they don’t know about Nicky.  Why can’t you take it as a rag?  You bet he does.”

Anthony removed himself from her protecting hand.  He got up and went to bed.

But he did not sleep there.  Neither he nor Frances slept.  And he came down in the morning looking worse than ever.

Dorothy thought, “It must be awful to have children if it makes you feel like that.”  She thought, “It’s a lucky thing they’re not likely to cut up the same way about me.”  She thought again, “It must be awful to have children.”  She thought of the old discussions in her room at Newnham, about the woman’s right to the child, and free union, and easy divorce, and the abolition of the family.  Her own violent and revolutionary speeches (for which she liked to think she might have been sent down) sounded faint and far-off and irrelevant.  She did not really want to abolish Frances and Anthony.  And yet, if they had been abolished, as part of the deplorable institution of parentage, it would have been better for them; for then they would not be suffering as they did.

It must be awful to have children.  But perhaps they knew that it was worth it.

And as her thoughts travelled that way they were overtaken all of a sudden by an idea.  She did not stop to ask herself what business her idea had in that neighbourhood.  She went down first thing after breakfast and sent off two wires; one to Captain Drayton at Croft House, Eltham; one to the same person at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.

“Can I see you?  It’s about Nicky.

“DOROTHY HARRISON.”

Wires to show that she was impersonal and businesslike, and that her business was urgent.  “Can I see you?” to show that he was not being invited to see her.  “It’s about Nicky” to justify the whole proceeding.  “Dorothy Harrison” because “Dorothy” by itself was too much.

* * * * *

As soon as she had sent off her wires Dorothy felt a sense of happiness and well-being.  She had no grounds for happiness; far otherwise; her great friendship with Rosalind Jervis was disintegrating bit by bit owing to Rosalind’s behaviour; the fiery Suffrage meeting had turned into dust and ashes; her darling Nicky was in a nasty scrape; her father and mother were utterly miserable; yet she was happy.