As with so many others, Mavis began by liking but ended by being repelled by Victoria’s inhuman flawlessness.

Thus Mavis lived for the weeks she stayed at Melkbridge House.  But at all times, no matter what she might be doing, she was liable to be attacked by bitter, heart-rending grief at the loss of her child.  Mavis had already suffered so much that she was now able to distinguish the pains peculiar to the different varieties of sorrow.  This particular grief took the shape of a piteous, persistent heart hunger which nothing could stay.  Joined to this was a ceaseless longing for the lost one, which cast drear shadows upon the bright hues of life.  The way in which she was compelled to isolate her pain from all human sympathy did not diminish its violence.

One night, when the Devitts were entertaining their kind, the conversation at dinner touched upon a local petty sessions case, in which the nursemaid of one of those present had been punished for concealing the birth of an illegitimate child, who had since died.

“It was a great worry to me,” complained the nurse’s mistress.  “She was such a perfect nurse.”

“I hope you’ll do something for her when she comes out,” urged Harold.

The woman stared at Harold in astonishment.

“Think how the poor girl’s suffered,” he continued.

“Do you really think so?” asked the woman.

“She’s lost her child.”

“But I always understood that those who lose children out of wedlock cannot possible grieve like married women who have the same loss.”

In a moment Mavis’s thoughts flew to Pennington Churchyard, where her heart seemed buried deep below the grass; certain of her facial nerves twitched, while tears filled her eyes.  Devitt’s voice recalled her to her surroundings; she looked up, to catch his eyes looking kindly into hers.  Although she made an effort to join in the talk, she was mentally bowing her head, the while her being ached with anguish.  She did not recover her spirits for the rest of the evening.

There came a day when one of the big guns of the financial world was expected to dinner.  Mavis had many times met at Melkbridge House some of the lesser artillery of successful business men, when she had been surprised to discover what dull, uninteresting folk they were; apart from their devotion to the cult of money-getting, they did not seem to have another interest in life, the ceaseless quest for gold absorbing all their vitality.  This big gun was a Sir Frederick Buntz, whose interest Devitt, as he told Mavis, was anxious to secure in one of his company-promoting schemes.  In order to do Devitt a good turn, Mavis laid herself out to please the elderly Sir Frederick, who happened to have an eye for an attractive woman.  Sir Frederick scarcely spoke to anyone else but Mavis throughout dinner; at the end of the evening, he asked her if she advised him to join Devitt’s venture.