“Tearing off their jewellery in public like that,” said Mrs. Hilary, in disgust, as she might have said tearing off their chemises, “and gold watches lying in piles on the collection table, still ticking....”  She felt it was indecent that the watches should have still been ticking; it made the thing an orgy, like a revival meeting, or some cannibal rite at which victims were offered up still breathing....

So much for the Anglo-Catholic Congress.  The Church Congress was better, being more decent and in order, though Mrs. Hilary knew that the whole established Church was wrong.

And so they came to literature, to a review of Mr. Conrad’s new novel and a paragraph about a famous annual literary prize.  Grandmama thought it very nice that young writers should be encouraged by cash prizes.  “Not,” as she added, “that there seems any danger of any of them being discouraged, even without that....  But Nan and Kay and Gerda ought to go in for it.  It would be a nice thing for them to work for.”

Then Grandmama, settling down with her pleased old smile to something which mattered more than the news in the papers, said “And now, dear, I want to hear all about this friendship of Nan’s and this nice young Mr. Briscoe.”

So Neville again had to answer questions about that.

7

Mrs. Hilary, abruptly leaving them, trailed away by herself to the house.  Since she mightn’t have Neville to herself for the afternoon she wouldn’t stay and share her.  But when she reached the house and looked out at them through the drawing-room windows, their intimacy stabbed her with a pang so sharp that she wished she had stayed.

Besides, what was there to do indoors?  No novels lay about that looked readable, only “The Rescue” (and she couldn’t read Conrad, he was so nautical) and a few others which looked deficient in plot and as if they were trying to be clever.  She turned them over restlessly, and put them down again.  She wasn’t sleepy, and hated writing letters.  She wanted someone to talk to, and there was no one, unless she rang for the housemaid.  Oh, this dreadful ennui....  Did anyone in the world know it but her?  The others all seemed busy and bright.  That was because they were young.  And Grandmama seemed serene and bright.  That was because she was old, close to the edge of life, and sat looking over the gulf into space, not caring.  But for Mrs. Hilary there was ennui, and the dim, empty room in the cold grey July afternoon.  The empty stage; no audience, no actors.  Only a lonely, disillusioned actress trailing about it, hungry for the past....  A book Gerda had been reading lay on the table.  “The Breath of Life,” it was called, which was surely just what Mrs. Hilary wanted.  She picked it up, opened it, turned the pages, then, tucking it away out of sight under her arm, left the room and went upstairs.