’You would soothe me, but you little dream of the poison you are dropping on my wounds.  You never understood, you are too far removed from me in thought and feeling ever to understand—­no, your spirituality is only a delusion; you are no better at heart than May Gould.  It is the same thing:  one seeks a husband, another gratifies herself with a lover.  It is the same thing—­where’s the difference?  It is animal passion all the same.  And that letter is full of it—­it must be—­I am sure it is.’

‘You are very insulting, Cecilia.  Where have you thrown my letter?’

The letter had fallen beneath the table.  Alice made a movement towards it, but, overcome by mad rage, Cecilia caught it up and threw it into the fire.  Alice rescued her letter, and then, her face full of stern indignation, she said: 

’I think, Cecilia, you had better leave my room, and before you come to see me again, I shall expect to receive a written apology for the outrageous way you have behaved.’

In a few days came a humble and penitent letter; Cecilia returned, her eyes full of tears, and begged to be forgiven; the girls resumed their friendship, but both were conscious that it was neither so bright nor so communicative as in the olden days.

XXII

‘Something has happened to my learned daughter,’ said Mr. Barton, and he continued his thumb-nail sketch on the tablecloth.  ‘What is it?’ he added indolently.

Alice passed the cheque and the memorandum across the table.  ’Three pounds for three articles contributed to the ——­ during the month of April.’

‘You don’t mean to say, Alice, you got three pounds for your writing?’ said Mrs. Barton.

’Yes, mother, I have, and I hope to make ten pounds next month.  Mr. Harding says he can get me lots of work.’

’So my lady then, with all her shy ways, knows how to make use of a man as well as any of us.’

Mrs. Barton did not willingly wound.  She saw life from the point of view of making use of men, that was all; and when Alice walked out of the room, Mrs. Barton felt sorry for what she had said, and she would have gone to comfort her daughter if Olive had not, at that moment, stood in imminent need of comfort.

‘I suppose,’ she said pettishly, ’the letter you received this morning is from the Marquis, to say he won’t be here next Tuesday?’

It was.  For as the day fixed for his arrival at Brookfield approached, he would write to apologize, and to beg that he might be allowed to postpone his visit to Monday week or Wednesday fortnight.  Mrs. Barton replied that they would be very glad to see him when he found it convenient to come and see them.  She did not inquire into the reason of his rudeness, she was determined to fight the battle out to the end, and she did not dare to think that he was being prompted by that beast of a girl, Violet Scully.