Cecilia looked sadly at the floor.  Not since Stephen was bad with pleurisy had she felt so worried.  The sight of Hilary’s face brought back her doubts with all their force.  It might, of course, be only anger at the man’s impudence, but it might be—­she hardly liked to frame her thought—­a more personal feeling.

“Don’t you think,” she said, “that, anyway, she had better not come here again?”

Hilary paced the room.

“It’s her only safe and certain piece of work; it keeps her independent.  It’s much more satisfactory than this sitting.  I can’t have any hand in taking it away from her.”

Cecilia had never seen him moved like this.  Was it possible that he was not incorrigibly gentle, but had in him some of that animality which she, in a sense, admired?  This uncertainty terribly increased the difficulties of the situation.

“But, Hilary,” she said at last, “are you satisfied about the girl—­I mean, are you satisfied that she really is worth helping?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I mean,” murmured Cecilia, “that we don’t know anything about her past.”  And, seeing from the movement of his eyebrows that she was touching on what had evidently been a doubt with him, she went on with great courage:  “Where are her friends and relations?  I mean, she may have had a—­adventures.”

Hilary withdrew into himself.

“You can hardly expect me,” he said, “to go into that with her.”

His reply made Cecilia feel ridiculous.

“Well,” she said in a hard little voice, “if this is what comes of helping the poor, I don’t see the use of it.”

The outburst evoked no reply from Hilary; she felt more tremulous than ever.  The whole thing was so confused, so unnatural.  What with the dark, malignant Hughs and that haunting vision of Bianca, the matter seemed almost Italian.  That a man of Hughs’ class might be affected by the passion of love had somehow never come into her head.  She thought of the back streets she had looked out on from her bedroom window.  Could anything like passion spring up in those dismal alleys?  The people who lived there, poor downtrodden things, had enough to do to keep themselves alive.  She knew all about them; they were in the air; their condition was deplorable!  Could a person whose condition was deplorable find time or strength for any sort of lurid exhibition such as this?  It was incredible.

She became aware that Hilary was speaking.

“I daresay the man is dangerous!”

Hearing her fears confirmed, and in accordance with the secret vein of hardness which kept her living, amid all her sympathies and hesitations, Cecilia felt suddenly that she had gone as far as it was in her to go.

“I shall have no more to do with them,” she said; “I’ve tried my best for Mrs. Hughs.  I know quite as good a needlewoman, who’ll be only too glad to come instead.  Any other girl will do as well to copy father’s book.  If you take my advice, Hilary, you’ll give up trying to help them too.”