Nan had heard before of this.

“She’ll give that up,” she said, coolly, “when she finds she really can’t have Barry if she doesn’t.  Gerda gets what she wants.”

“Oh, you all do that, the whole lot of you....  And a nice example you’re setting the child.”

“She’ll give it up,” Nan repeated, keeping the conversation on Gerda.  “Gerda hasn’t the martyr touch.  She won’t perish for a principle.  She wants Barry and she’ll have him, though she may hold out for a time.  Gerda doesn’t lose things, in the end.”

“She’s a very silly child, and I suppose she’s been mixing with dreadful friends and picked up these ideas.  At twenty there’s some excuse for ignorant foolishness.”  But none at thirty-three, Mrs. Hilary meant.

“Barry Briscoe,” she added, “is being quite firm about it.  Though he is desperately in love with her, Neville tells me; desperately.”

He’s soon got over you, even if he did care for you once, and even if you did send him away, her emphasis implied.

In Nan, casually flicking the ash off her cigarette, a queer impulse came and went.  For a moment she wanted to cry; to drop hardness and lightness and pretence, and cry like a child and say “Mother, comfort me.  Don’t go on hurting me.  I love Barry.  Be kind to me, oh be kind to me!”

If she had done it, Mrs. Hilary would have taken her in her arms and been all mother, and the wound in their affection would have been temporarily healed.

Nan said nonchalantly “I suppose he is.  They’re sure to be all right....  Now what next, mother?  It’s getting dark for seeing things.”

“I am tired to death,” said Mrs. Hilary.  “I shall go back to those dreadful rooms and try to rest....  It has been an awful day....  I hate Rome.  In ’99 it was so different.  Father and I went about together; he showed me everything.  He knew about it all.  Besides....”

Besides, how could I enjoy sight-seeing after that scene this morning, and with this awful calamity that has happened?

They went back.  Mrs. Hilary was desperately missing her afternoon hour with Mr. Cradock.  She had come to rely on it on a Wednesday.

5

Nan sat up late, correcting proofs, after Mrs. Hilary had gone to bed.  Galleys lay all round her on the floor by the stove.  She let them slip from her knee and lie there.  She hated them....

She pressed her hands over her eyes, shutting them out, shutting out life.  She was going off with Stephen Lumley.  She had told him so this morning.  Both their lives were broken; hers by Barry, whom she loved, his by his wife, whom he disliked.  He loved her; he wanted her.  She could with him find relief, find life a tolerable thing.  They could have a good time together.  They were good companions; their need, though dissimilar, was mutual.  They saw the same beauty, spoke the same tongue, laughed at the same things.  In the very thought of Stephen,