A strange reply, thought Jacqueline.  The unalterable custom of Jacqueline was to retire at midnight and to rise at five-thirty.  Her mistress also usually retired about midnight, and during the final hour mistress and portress saw a good deal of each other.  And considering that Jacqueline had just been sent up into the mistress’s own bedroom to glance at Fossette, and that the bulletin was satisfactory, and that madame and Jacqueline had several customary daily matters to discuss, it seemed odd that madame should thus be going instantly to bed.  However, Jacqueline said nothing but: 

“Very well, madame.  And the number 32?”

“Arrange yourself as you can,” said the mistress, curtly.

“It is well, madame.  Good evening, madame, and a good night.”

Jacqueline, alone in the hall, re-entered her box and set upon one of those endless, mysterious tasks which occupied her when she was not rushing to and fro or whistling up the tubes.

Sophia, scarcely troubling even to glance into Fossette’s round basket, undressed, put out the light, and got into bed.  She felt extremely and inexplicably gloomy.  She did not wish to reflect; she strongly wished not to reflect; but her mind insisted on reflection—­a monotonous, futile, and distressing reflection.  Povey!  Povey!  Could this be Constance’s Povey, the unique Samuel Povey?  That is to say, not he, but his son, Constance’s son.  Had Constance a grown-up son?  Constance must be over fifty now, perhaps a grandmother!  Had she really married Samuel Povey?  Possibly she was dead.  Certainly her mother must be dead, and Aunt Harriet and Mr. Critchlow.  If alive, her mother must be at least eighty years of age.

The cumulative effect of merely remaining inactive when one ought to be active, was terrible.  Undoubtedly she should have communicated with her family.  It was silly not to have done so.  After all, even if she had, as a child, stolen a trifle of money from her wealthy aunt, what would that have mattered?  She had been proud.  She was criminally proud.  That was her vice.  She admitted it frankly.  But she could not alter her pride.  Everybody had some weak spot.  Her reputation for sagacity, for commonsense, was, she knew, enormous; she always felt, when people were talking to her, that they regarded her as a very unusually wise woman.  And yet she had been guilty of the capital folly of cutting herself off from her family.  She was ageing, and she was alone in the world.  She was enriching herself; she had the most perfectly managed and the most respectable Pension in the world (she sincerely believed), and she was alone in the world.  Acquaintances she had—­French people who never offered nor accepted hospitality other than tea or wine, and one or two members of the English commercial colony—­ but her one friend was Fossette, aged three years!  She was the most solitary person on earth.  She had heard no word of Gerald, no word of anybody.