So (it came out of lying on grass, which Barry was doing) she told him about the pneumonia of Neville as a child, how they had been staying in Cornwall, miles from a doctor, and without Mr. Hilary, and Mrs. Hilary had been in despair; how Jim, a little chap of twelve, had ridden off on his pony in the night to fetch the doctor, across the moors.  A long story; stories about illnesses always are.  Mrs. Hilary got worked up and excited as she told it; it came back to her so vividly, the dreadful night.

“He was a Dr. Chalmers, and so kind.  When he saw Neville he was horrified; by that time she was delirious.  He said if Jim hadn’t gone straight to him but had waited till the morning, it might have been too late....”

“Too late:  quite. ...”  Barry Briscoe had an understanding, sympathetic grip of one’s last few words.  So much of the conversation of others eludes one, but one should hold fast the last few words.

“Oh played, Gerda:  did you that time, Bendish....”

Gerda had put on, probably by accident, a sudden, absurd twist that had made a fool of Rodney.

That was what Barry Briscoe was really attending to, the silly game.  This alert, seemingly interested, attentive young man had a nice manner, that led you on, but he didn’t really care.  He lived in the moment:  he cared for prisoners and workers, and probably for people who were ill now, but not that someone had been ill all those years ago.  He only pretended to care; he was polite.  He turned his keen, pleasant face up to her when he had done shouting about the game, and said “How splendid that he got to you in time!” but he didn’t really care.  Mrs. Hilary found that women were better listeners than men.  Women are perhaps better trained; they think it more ill-mannered not to show interest.  They will listen to stories about servants, or reports of the inane sayings of infants, they will hear you through, without the flicker of a yawn, but with ejaculations and noddings, while you tell them about your children’s diseases.  They are well-bred; they drive themselves on a tight rein, and endure.  They are the world’s martyrs.

But men, less restrained, will fidget and wander and sigh and yawn, and change the subject.

To trap and hold the sympathy of a man—­how wonderful!  Who wanted a pack of women?  What you really wanted was some man whose trade it was to listen and to give heed.  Some man to whom your daughter’s pneumonia, of however long ago, was not irrelevant, but had its own significance, as having helped to build you up as you were, you, the problem, with your wonderful, puzzling temperament, so full of complexes, inconsistencies and needs.  Some man who didn’t lose interest in you just because you were grey-haired and sixty-three.

“I’m afraid I’ve been taking your attention from the game,” said Mrs. Hilary to Barry Briscoe.

Compunction stabbed him.  Had he been rude to this elderly lady, who had been telling him a long tale without a point while he watched the tennis and made polite, attentive sounds?