‘She always declares that he never loved her,’ said Dorothy.’she has told me so twenty times.’

‘There are people who fancy that nobody cares for them,’ said Brooke.

‘Indeed there are, Mr Burgess; and it is so natural.’

‘Why natural?’

’Just as it is natural that there should be dogs and cats that are petted and loved and made much of, and others that have to crawl through life as they can, cuffed and kicked and starved.’

‘That depends on the accident of possession,’ said Brooke.

’So does the other.  How many people there are that don’t seem to belong to anybody and if they do, they’re no good to anybody.  They’re not cuffed exactly, or starved; but—­’

‘You mean that they don’t get their share of affection?’

‘They get perhaps as much as they deserve,’ said Dorothy.

‘Because they’re cross-grained, or ill-tempered, or disagreeable?’

‘Not exactly that.’

‘What then?’ asked Brooke.

’Because they’re just nobodies.  They are not anything particular to anybody, and so they go on living till they die.  You know what I mean, Mr Burgess.  A man who is a nobody can perhaps make himself somebody or, at any rate, he can try; but a woman has no means of trying.  She is a nobody and a nobody she must remain.  She has her clothes and her food, but she isn’t wanted anywhere.  People put up with her, and that is about the best of her luck.  If she were to die somebody perhaps would be sorry for her, but nobody would be worse off.  She doesn’t earn anything or do any good.  She is just there and that’s all.’

Brooke had never heard her speak after this fashion before, had never known her to utter so many consecutive words, or to put forward any opinion of her own with so much vigour.  And Dorothy herself, when she had concluded her speech, was frightened by her own energy and grew red in the face, and shewed very plainly that she was half ashamed of herself.  Brooke thought that he had never seen her look so pretty before, and was pleased by her enthusiasm.  He understood perfectly that she was thinking of her own position, though she had entertained no idea that he would so read her meaning; and he felt that it was incumbent on him to undeceive her, and make her know that she was not one of those women who are ‘just there and that’s all.’  ’One does see such a woman as that now and again,’ he said.

‘There are hundreds of them,’ said Dorothy.  ’And of course it can’t be helped.’

‘Such as Arabella French,’ said he, laughing.

’Well yes; if she is one.  It is very easy to see the difference.  Some people are of use and are always doing things.  There are others, generally women, who have nothing to do, but who can’t be got rid of.  It is a melancholy sort of feeling.’

‘You at least are not one of them.’

‘I didn’t mean to complain about myself,’ she said.  ’I have got a great deal to make me happy.’