The winter dragged quietly through, and the spring came; the queer London ghost of spring, with its bitter winds and black buds and evasive hints of what is going on in the real world, where things change.  Peter dreamt of green things coming up and hawthorn hedges growing edible.  Rhoda’s cough grew softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too had her dreams.  She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten’s neck-ribbon.  It was really a cat now, and cats are tiresome.  She said she was dull all day with so little to do.  Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people to the house more, and she assented, rather listlessly.  So Peter hinted to Peggy, who had a cheering presence, that Rhoda would be glad to see her more often, and Peggy made what time she could to come round.  Their circle of friends was limited; they chiefly consisted of the inhabitants of fifty-one, and a few relatives of Rhoda’s, who amused and pleased Peter but vexed Rhoda by being common.

“But I like them,” said Peter.

“You like to see me put to shame, I suppose,” said Rhoda, with tears in her eyes.  “As if it was my fault that my parents came of common people.  I’ve cried myself sick over it sometimes, when I was younger, and now I just want to forget it.”

Peter said no more.  It was one of the sides of Rhoda with which he felt he had no connexion; it was best let alone, as Peter always let alone the things he could not like.  But he was sorry she felt like that, for her nice, common, friendly relations might have been company for her.

Peter sometimes brought friends home from his office; Peter could not have been in an office without collecting friends, having the social instinct strongly developed.  But Rhoda didn’t much care about seeing his fellow-clerks; they hadn’t, she was sure, great minds, and they made silly jokes.

Another person who came to see Peter sometimes was Rodney.  Ever since the Margerisons’ abrupt fall into ignominy, Rodney had cultivated Peter’s acquaintance.  Peter perceived that he had at last slipped into the ranks of those unfortunates who were qualified for Rodney’s regard; it was enough for that, Urquhart had long since told him, to be cut by society or to produce a yesterday’s handkerchief.  Peter, driven from the faces of the rich, found Rodney waiting to receive him cheerfully among the ranks of the poor.  Rodney was a much occupied person; but when he found time from his other pursuits he walked up from his Westminster slum to Holborn and visited 9 Greville Street.  He hadn’t known quite what to make of Peter’s marriage; though when he got to know Rhoda a little he began to understand rather more.  She, being very manifestly among the Have-Nots, and a small, weak, and pitiable thing, also entered in a manner into the circle of his tolerance.  He was gentle with her always, though not expansive.  She was a little in awe of the gaunt young man, with his strange eyes that seemed to see so much further than anyone else’s.  She pronounced him “queer.”