‘Oh dear!’ she thought.  ’I know B.’s come here because she’s unhappy.  Poor thing!  Poor Hilary!  It’s that wretched business again, I suppose.’

Skilled in every tone of Stephen’s voice, she knew that Bianca’s entry had provoked the same train of thought in him; to her he seemed reading out these words:  ’I disapprove—­I disapprove.  She’s Cis’s sister.  But if it wasn’t for old Hilary I wouldn’t have the subject in the house!’

Bianca, whose subtlety recorded every shade of feeling, could see that she was not welcome.  Leaning back with veil raised, she seemed listening to Stephen’s reading, but in fact she was quivering at the sight of those two couples.

Couples, couples—­for all but her!  What crime had she committed?  Why was the china of her cup flawed so that no one could drink from it?  Why had she been made so that nobody could love her?  This, the most bitter of all thoughts, the most tragic of all questionings, haunted her.

The article which Stephen read—­explaining exactly how to deal with people so that from one sort of human being they might become another, and going on to prove that if, after this conversion, they showed signs of a reversion, it would then be necessary to know the reason why—­fell dryly on ears listening to that eternal question:  Why is it with me as it is?  It is not fair!—­listening to the constant murmuring of her pride:  I am not wanted here or anywhere.  Better to efface myself!

From their end of the room Thyme and Martin scarcely looked at her.  To them she was Aunt B., an amateur, the mockery of whose eyes sometimes penetrated their youthful armour; they were besides too interested in their conversation to perceive that she was suffering.  The skirmish of that conversation had lasted now for many days—­ever since the death of the Hughs’ baby.

“Well,” Martin was saying, “what are you going to do?  It’s no good to base it on the baby; you must know your own mind all round.  You can’t go rushing into real work on mere sentiment.”

“You went to the funeral, Martin.  It’s bosh to say you didn’t feel it too!”

Martin deigned no answer to this insinuation.

“We’ve gone past the need for sentiment,” he said:  “it’s exploded; so is Justice, administered by an upper class with a patch over one eye and a squint in the other.  When you see a dying donkey in a field, you don’t want to refer the case to a society, as your dad would; you don’t want an essay of Hilary’s, full of sympathy with everybody, on ’Walking in a field:  with reflections on the end of donkeys’—­you want to put a bullet in the donkey.”

“You’re always down on Uncle Hilary,” said Thyme.

“I don’t mind Hilary himself; I object to his type.”

“Well, he objects to yours,” said Thyme.

“I’m not so sure of that,” said Martin slowly; “he hasn’t got character enough.”

Thyme raised her chin, and, looking at him through half-closed eyes, said:  “Well, I do think, of all the conceited persons I ever met you’re the worst.”