‘Impossible in London.’

‘Unless you are a duchess.’

‘What a pleasant thing it must be,’ said Alma musingly, ’to have ancestors.’

Harvey chuckled.

‘The next best thing is to have descendants.’

‘Why, then,’ exclaimed Alma, ’we become ancestors ourselves.  But one ought to have an interesting house to live in.  Nobody’s ancestors ever lived in a semi-detached villa.  What I should like would be one of those picturesque old places down in Surrey quite in the country, yet within easy reach of town; a house with a real garden, and perhaps an orchard.  I believe you can get them very cheap sometimes.  Not rent the house, but buy it.  Then we would have our portraits painted, and ——­’

Harvey asked himself how long Alma would find satisfaction in such a home; but it pleased him to hear her talking thus of the things which were his own hopeless dream.

’That reminds me, Alma, you have never sat yet for your picture, as I said you should.’

‘We must wait —­ now.’

‘It shall be done next year.’

They were content with each other this evening, and looked forward to pleasures they might have in common.  For Harvey had learnt to nourish only the humblest hopes, and Alma thought she had subdued herself to an undistinguished destiny.

CHAPTER 5

Determined to have done once for all with a task she loathed, Alma wrote out her advertisements for cook, house-parlourmaid, and nurse, and sent them to half a dozen newspapers.  After three weeks of correspondence with servants and mistresses —­ a correspondence which, as Rolfe said, would have made a printed volume of higher sociological interest than anything yet published, or likely to be —­ the end of her patience and her strength compelled her to decide half desperately, and engage the three young women who appeared least insolent.  At the same time she had to find a new boy for boots, windows, knives, and coals, the youngster hitherto employed having been so successful with his ‘book’ on Kempton Park and Hurst Park September meetings that he relinquished menial duties and devoted himself wholly to the turf; but this was such a simple matter, compared with the engaging of indoor domestics, that she felt it almost a delight.  When a strong, merry-looking lad presented himself, eager for the job, and speaking not a word that was beside the point, Alma could have patted his head.

She amused Harvey that evening by exclaiming with the very accent of sincerity ——­

‘How I like men, and how I detest women!’

Her nerves were so upset again that, when all was over, she generally slept pretty well, but now her insomnia returned, and had to keep her bed for a day or two.  At the sea-side she had once more she had recourse to the fashionable specific.  Harvey knew nothing of this; she was careful to hide it from him; and each time she measured out her dose she assured herself that it should be the last.