Cecilia had no pocket, Providence having removed it now for some time past, but from her little bag she drew forth the two essentials of gentility.  Taking her nose, which she feared was shining, gently within one, she fumbled in the other.  And again she looked doubtfully at Mrs. Hughs.  Her heart said:  ’Give the poor woman half a sovereign; it might comfort her!’ But her brain said:  ’I owe her four-and-six; after what she’s just been saying about her husband and that girl and Hilary, it mayn’t be safe to give her more.’  She held out two half-crowns, and had an inspiration:  “I shall mention to my sister what you’ve said; you can tell your husband that!”

No sooner had she said this, however, than she saw, from a little smile devoid of merriment and quickly extinguished, that Mrs. Hughs did not believe she would do anything of the kind; from which she concluded that the seamstress was convinced of Hilary’s interest in the little model.  She said hastily: 

“You can go now, Mrs. Hughs.”

Mrs. Hughs went, making no noise or sign of any sort.

Cecilia returned to her scattered thoughts.  They lay there still, with a gleam of sun from the low window smearing their importance; she felt somehow that it did not now matter very much whether she and Stephen, in the interests of science, saw that man fall from his balloon, or, in the interests of art, heard Herr von Kraaffe sing his Polish songs; she experienced, too, almost a revulsion in favour of tinned milk.  After meditatively tearing up her note to Messrs. Rose and Thorn, she lowered the bureau lid and left the room.

Mounting the stairs, whose old oak banisters on either side were a real joy, she felt she was stupid to let vague, sordid rumours, which, after all, affected her but indirectly, disturb her morning’s work.  And entering Stephen’s dressing-room she stood looking at his boots.

Inside each one of them was a wooden soul; none had any creases, none had any holes.  The moment they wore out, their wooden souls were taken from them and their bodies given to the poor, whilst—­in accordance with that theory, to hear a course of lectures on which a scattered thought was even now inviting her—­the wooden souls migrated instantly to other leathern bodies.

Looking at that polished row of boots, Cecilia felt lonely and unsatisfied.  Stephen worked in the Law Courts, Thyme worked at Art; both were doing something definite.  She alone, it seemed, had to wait at home, and order dinner, answer letters, shop, pay calls, and do a dozen things that failed to stop her thoughts from dwelling on that woman’s tale.  She was not often conscious of the nature of her life, so like the lives of many hundred women in this London, which she said she could not stand, but which she stood very well.  As a rule, with practical good sense, she kept her doubting eyes fixed friendlily on every little phase in turn, enjoying well enough