BOOK IV

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 1

THE two years that elapsed after Colonel Ogden's death were years of monotonous uncertainty. There was no charm about this uncertainty, no spirit of possible high adventure raised it from the level of Seabourne; like everything else that came under the spell of the place, it was dull. Mrs. Ogden had sunk into a deep depression, which expressed itself in the wearing of melodramatic widow's weeds; when she roused herself now it was usually to be irritable. There was a servant less in the house, for they could no longer afford to keep a house-parlourmaid, and things had already begun to look dingy and ill cared for. The overworked generals provided a certain periodical variety by leaving at a moment's notice, for Mrs. Ogden was fast developing the nagging habit, and spent hours every day in examining the work that had been left undone. And then there was the money. Always a difficult problem, it had now become acute. Released from the domestic tyranny of her husband, Mrs. Ogden lapsed into partial invalidism. She scarcely did more than worry along somehow. The books went unchecked and sometimes unpaid, and in consequence the tradespeople were less respectful in their manner, or so she imagined.

Elizabeth still crammed Joan, but for this she received no payment, and they studied at Ralph Rodney's house during his office hours. In his plush-hung study, beneath the portrait of Uncle John grown old, they sat and worked and made plans; sometimes they were happy and sometimes inexplicably sad. Elizabeth knew that Mrs. Ogden hated her, had always hated her with the stubborn hatred of a weak nature. In the old days she had not cared, except inasmuch as it might separate her from Joan, but now she had become acutely sensitive to the atmosphere of antagonism that she met at Leaside. It had begun to depress her, while at the same time her will rose up to meet the emergency; it was "pull Devil, pull baker" more than ever before. Between these two passionately determined women stood Joan, miserable and young, longing for things to come to a head, for something that she felt ought to happen; she didn't know what. She was conscious of a sense of emptiness, of unfulfilment; she was sleeping badly again, tormented by dreams that were only half remembered, the shadow of which haunted her throughout the day. She longed for peace; when she was away from Elizabeth she was restless until they met again, yet when they were together now their companionship was spoilt by Joan's consciousness of her mother's disapproval. Elizabeth had swift gusts of anger now that came up suddenly like a thunderstorm; she, too, was changing, breaking a little under the strain. These two had begun to act as an irritant on each other, and the hours of study would be interrupted by quarrels that had no particular beginning or end, and reconciliations that were only partial because so much seemed to be left unsaid.

Joan became scrupulously neat; she found relief in grooming herself. Her hair no longer tumbled over her forehead, but was parted and brushed till it shone, and she took an unconscionable time over her ties and the polishing of her brown shoes. If she had had the money, she would certainly have bought silk stockings to match her ties, a pair for every new tie. The more unhappy she felt the more care did she lavish on her appearance; it was a kind of bravado, a subtle revenge for some nameless injustice that fate had inflicted on her. Elizabeth secretly approved the change, but was silent; in vain did Joan wait for words of approbation; they never came. She longed for praise, with a childish desire that Elizabeth should admire her. Elizabeth did admire her, but a new perverseness that had sprung up in her lately made her refrain from saying so.

Events were moving slowly, but all the more surely for that, perhaps. Less than a year now and Joan would be of age, and then what? The unspoken question looked out of Elizabeth's eyes. Joan saw it there; it seemed to materialize and stand between them. They could not evade the hungry, restless thing; it made them feel self-conscious and afraid of each other.

It was summer now and still Mrs. Ogden wore her heavy mourning; she looked frailer than ever in the long crape veil, and her pathetic eyes seemed to have grown dim with too much weeping. Seabourne elected to pity her, and looked askance at Joan. Not that Mrs. Ogden ever accused her daughter of heartlessness; she only implied it, together with her own maternal devotion. People thought her a helpless little woman, worthy of better treatment at the hands of that queer, cranky girl of hers. They began to talk at Joan rather than to her.

2

The loss of her money had had an entirely unexpected effect on Milly, who had not raged after all, but had just smiled disagreeably. "I knew he'd do something devilish," she said, "and how like him to die and leave us to bear the brunt."

If she fretted she did so silently, taking no one into her confidence; it was curiously unlike the old Milly. At eighteen she was beautiful, with the doll-like beauty that would some day become distressing, the beauty that would never weather pleasantly.

Her little violin master had wrung his hands at the news of her misfortune; to him the disaster meant the end of his hopes, the end of a life-long ambition. Tears had stood in his eyes when Milly told him what had happened; he had put his arm around her, thinking that she must be in need of consolation, but she had flung away from him with a laugh.

Mrs. Ogden behaved as though her younger daughter were non-existent, and Elizabeth, though she saw that all was very far from well, had become absorbed in her own troubles and held her peace. Joan, on the other hand, watched her sister with increasing apprehension; she felt that this unnatural calm could not go on.

In the circumstances, it was too foreign to Milly's nature, an alien and unwholesome thing that might some day give place to a whirlwind.

Milly still played her violin, but lately there was something defiant, almost cruel, in her playing; she played now because she must and not because she wanted to. She appeared to have grown calmly frivolous, but there was no joy in her frivolity, or so it seemed to Joan; it was premeditated. The society of Seabourne welcomed her advent with enthusiasm; it found her bright and amusing. Her principal pleasure was now lawn tennis, which absorbed her during the summer months; she was bidding fair to become a star player, and she and Mr. Thompson of the circulating library vied with each other in amiable competition.

Mr. Thompson was sleeker than ever, and slightly impertinent in his manner, Joan thought; his hair shone and his flannels were immaculate. "No, reely now, Miss Milly, reely now!" he protested, failing to take her service after an exaggerated effort. It became quite usual for him to see her home in the evenings, carrying her racket confidentially under his arm.

Joan said: "I can't understand you, Milly; why on earth do you treat that bounder as if he were one of us?"

But Milly only smiled and held her peace.

She seemed to spend hours every Saturday afternoon at Mr. Dodds'. "He's teaching me some new German music," she told Joan, when questioned.

Milly had become a great letter writer; she was always writing letters these days, and always receiving them. She made a practice of collecting her post before the family came down to breakfast, slipping out of the bedroom on any transparent pretext.

But gradually a subtle change began to come over Milly; some of the bravado left her, its place being taken by a queer, resentful desire to please; it was almost as though she were frightened. She offered to run errands for Joan, but was quick to take offence if her offer were refused. She was no longer so secretive either, and seemed to welcome occasions for confidential talks. When they were in bed at nights she tossed and complained of sleeplessness; she was constantly hinting at some secret that she would gladly divulge if pressed. But Joan did not press her; she was growing sick of Milly.

One morning it happened that Joan herself went early to the letter-box; Milly had overslept, and was in her bath. Among some circulars and a few bills, there was a letter addressed to "Miss Ogden" in a neat clerical hand. She opened it and read, turning white with anger as she did so.

The letter was fulsome in its details, leaving nothing to the imagination. So this was how Milly spent her Saturday afternoons! Not in learning new music with innocent little Mr. Dodds, but hiding guiltily in an old sand-pit on the downs, with Mr. Thompson of the circulating library. Indulging herself in vulgar sensuality like any kitchen-maid courting disaster. Here then was the explanation of the man's impertinence, of her sister's new-found desire to propitiate; this then was Milly's revenge for her wrong, this low intrigue with a common tradesman in their own town. She tore upstairs with the letter in her hand. Milly was only half dressed and looked round in surprise as the door burst open.

Joan held the letter out towards her. "This!" she panted. "This beastly thing!"

Milly saw the handwriting and turned pale. "How dare you open my letters, Joan?"

"I open your letters? Look at the envelope; he forgot to put your Christian name; it came addressed to me."

Milly snatched the letter away. "You beast!" she said furiously, "you cad! you needn't have read it all through."

"I didn't read it all through, but I read enough to know what you've been doing. Good God! You—you common little brute!"

Milly turned and faced her; her eyes were wild but resolute, like an animal's at bay. "Go on!" she said, "go on, Joan, call me anything you like, but at the same time suppose you try to realize that I'm also a human being. Do you imagine that I really mind your knowing about Jack and me? I don't care! I've wanted to tell you scores of times. Yes, we do meet each other in the sand-pit every Saturday, and he makes love to me and I like it; do you hear? I enjoy it; I like being kissed and all the rest. I love Jack because he gives me what I want; if he's common I don't care, he's all I've got or am ever likely to get. You stand there calling me names and putting on your high and mighty air as though I were some low creature that had defiled you; and why? Only because I'm natural and you're not. You're a freak and I'm just a normal woman. I like men they mean a lot to me, and there aren't so many men in Seabourne that a girl can afford to pick and choose. How am I going to find the sort of man you would approve of in Seabourne; tell me that? And where's the harm? Lots of other girls like men too, but they go to dances and things and meet what you, I suppose, would call gentlemen. But it's all one; they do very much what Jack and I have done, only you don't know it, you with your books and your doctoring and your Elizabeth! Well, if I'd had a chance given me to meet your precious gentleman, perhaps I'd be engaged to be married by now, instead of having to be satisfied with Jack in a sand-pit." She began to laugh hysterically. "Jack in a sand-pit, how funny it sounds; Jack in a sand-pit!" She stopped suddenly and stared into Joan's eyes. "Listen," she said seriously, "listen, you queer creature; haven't you learnt anything from all your medical books? Don't you know that some people's natures are like mine, and that they can't help giving way sometimes to their impulses; and after all, Joan, where's the harm; tell me that? Where's the harm to anyone in what Jack and I have done? Perhaps I'll marry him—he wants me to—but meanwhile where's the harm in our being happy, even if it is in a sand-pit on Saturday afternoons?"

Joan looked at her in amazement. This was Milly, beside whom she had slept for years; this was her sister, talking like some abandoned woman, quite without shame, glorying in her lapse. This was the real Milly; all the others had been unreal, this was the natural Milly. Something in her own thoughts made her pause. Natural, yes, natural. This was Milly upholding the nature she had inherited, fighting for its pleasures, its gratifications; Milly was only being natural, being herself. Were other people like that when they were themselves? Was that why a housemaid they had had years ago had left because she was going to have a baby? Had she, too, been just natural? And what was being natural? Was it being like Milly, or like the housemaid with her sin great and heavy within her? What gave people these impulses which they would not or could not resist? Was it nature working on them for her own ends? Milly and the housemaid, she coupled them together in her mind. They were both human beings and what they had done was very human, too; very pitiful and sordid, like most human happenings.

She looked at her sister where she stood half dressed, her head drooping a little now, her cheeks flushed. She was so thin. It was touching the way her thin arms hung down from the short sleeves of her vest; they were like young twigs waiting to complete their growth. Seen like this there was so little of Milly to upbraid, she looked so childish. Yet she was not childish; she was wiser than Joan, she had probed into some secret. How funny!

"Come here," Joan said unsteadily; "come here to me, Milly."

Milly went to her, hiding her head on her shoulder. She began to cry. "Joan, listen, I didn't mean half I said just now, all the beastly, coarse things, I didn't mean any of them I know it's wrong, it's awful—and I've been so horribly ashamed—only I couldn't help it. I just couldn't help it!"

Joan thought quickly; she knew instinctively that her moment had come. It was now or never with Milly.

"Do you want to marry him?" she asked quietly.

Milly looked up, a little smile trembling over her tear-stained face.

"Of course not," she said. "Would you want to marry Jack?"

"Well, then, look here; do you still want to go to the Royal College, or have you lost all interest in your fiddle?"

"Lost interest? Why, I want it more than anything on earth; you know I do."

"Right!" said Joan; "then you shall go. I'll speak to Mother to-morrow."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 1

"IT'S no good, Mother," said Joan firmly. "Things like this can happen, they do happen; it's human nature, I suppose."

"It's not my idea of human nature," Mrs. Ogden replied in a trembling voice.

"Well, in any case it seems to have been Milly's nature, and the point is now that she ought to be sent to London."

"To think," Mrs. Ogden burst out suddenly, "to think that a daughter of mine could stoop to a vulgar intrigue with a common young man in a shop! Could—oh! I simply can't bring myself to say it—but could—well, go to such lengths that he ought to marry her. It's too horrible! It's on a par with our servant Rose, years ago; that was the milkman, and now it's my own flesh and blood—a Routledge!"

Joan sighed impatiently. "Good Lord! Mother, what does it matter who it is, a Routledge or a Rose Smith, it's all the same impulse."

Mrs. Ogden winced. "Please, please; surely there's no need to be so coarse, Joan?"

"I'm not coarse, Mother. Life may be, but I'm not; I'm just looking things squarely in the face. It seems to me that people have different temperaments. Some are pure because they can't help it, and some are impure because they can't help it. Milly likes men too much, and I like them too little, but here we are, we're your daughters, Routledges if you like, and all you can do is to make the best of it. It's horribly hard on you, Mother, but the only way that I see out of it for Milly is for her to go to the College. She'll probably forget this miserable business when she has her music again." She paused.

Mrs. Ogden voiced a sudden, fearful thought. "Joan," she said faintly, "will there—is there going to be a child?"

"No," said Joan. "I don't think you need fear that, from what Milly tells me."

Mrs. Ogden fell back in her chair. "I think I'm going to faint," she whispered, wiping her lips with trembling fingers. Joan went to her and, lifting her bodily, sat down with her mother on her knee. "You can't faint," she told her with the ghost of a smile. "We've no time for fainting, dear; we must go into the accounts and see where the money's to come from."

2

Milly took her scholarship and went to London. As the train moved slowly from the platform, Joan had an overwhelming sense of something that mattered. Was it Milly's departure? Perhaps. Milly's face had looked very small and young peering from the window of the third-class carriage, it had stirred Joan's protective instinct; yet her sister had smiled and waved happily, filled with joy at her new-found independence. But something had happened that did really matter, there was a change at last; change for Milly, it must be that Milly had got out of the cage. Why was Milly free while she, Joan, remained a prisoner? Was it because Milly was heartless, a callous egoist? Milly did not submit, she took the bit between her teeth and went at her own pace no matter who pulled on the reins. And her own pace had led her not to destruction, as by all the laws of morality it should have done, but to the actual goal of her heart's desire; surely this was immoral, somehow?

Milly's letters were full of enthusiasm. She wrote:

"I can't begin to tell you, Joan, how ripping it all is up here. I like Alexandra House; some of the others kick at the rules, but I don't mind them. Good Lord! After Leaside it seems Paradise to me. And I'm going ahead with my playing; I'm in the College orchestra, which is jolly good, I think; of course it's only a students' orchestra, but it's splendid practice. The students are quite good sorts, I've made one or two friends already. I never tell a soul about Jack; you said not to and I'm being cautious, for once. He keeps on writing, but I don't answer; what's the good? I hope he'll soon leave Seabourne, as it will be so awkward to have him there when the holidays come. By the way, he says he's going to try to get work in London, but don't worry, I shan't see him if he does; that's all over and I'm very busy."

It had worked better than Joan had dared to hope. Milly, absorbed in her music, had apparently submerged the other side of her nature, at all events for the time being. Joan could not help thinking of herself as a benefactress, a very present help in trouble. She had saved the situation, and perhaps her sister, and yet she felt discontented. No clouds of glory trailed for her, there was no spiritual uplift; she was conscious of nothing but a great restlessness that swept over her like a wind.

She would soon be of age; Elizabeth never let her forget this, for Elizabeth was restless too. She urged and drove to work; once she had held Joan back, but now she thrust her on and on. They slaved like two creatures possessed, working well on into the evenings. If Ralph turned them out of his study they went upstairs to Elizabeth's bedroom; work, always work and more work. On Saturday afternoons they tore themselves away from their books, and tired and dispirited walked slowly up to the Downs and sat there, looking out to sea.

Elizabeth said once: "You were little when I first knew you, Joan."

And Joan answered: "Yes, I was little then."

It seemed as though they had uttered a momentous statement, they quailed at the solemnity of their own words. It was like that now; their overstrained nerves tanged sharply to every commonplace.

"Next year," said Elizabeth thoughtfully.

"Next year," Joan repeated with a sinking heart.

"I'm growing old, Joan, but you'll make me young again."

And Joan's eyes filled with tears. "You're not old; don't say things like that, Elizabeth!"

"Oh, yes, I shall be old quite soon, and so we mustn't wait too long. Joan, I can't wait much longer."

She turned her tired eyes on Joan. "Good God!" she said passionately, "I've waited long enough."

And Mrs. Ogden complained. She always complained now; about her health, her house, the servant, her daughters. She was indefinitely ill, never quite normal, yet the doctor came and pronounced her to be sound. She complained of feeling lonely because Joan left her so much, pointing out that even their evenings together were broken into by the prolonged hours of study. She cried a good deal, and when she cried the evidences of it remained with her for hours; her eyes were becoming permanently red-rimmed. She said that she cried nearly every night in bed.

Elizabeth, far beyond being able to control her feelings, now expressed open dislike of her. "A selfish, hysterical woman," she called her; Joan winced, but remained silent, and alone with her mother was forced in turn to listen to elaborate tirades against Elizabeth. That was the way they spent their short evenings now, in bickering about Elizabeth. Mrs. Ogden said that she was a thief, a thief who had stolen her child from her, and occasionally Joan's self-control would go with alarming suddenness and a scene would follow, deplorably undignified and all quite futile. It would end by Mrs. Ogden going slowly upstairs, clinging to the banister, probably to cry herself to sleep, while Joan, her head buried in her hands, sat on far into the night.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 1

ON Joan's twenty-first birthday it poured with rain. She woke early, conscious of a sound that she could not place for a moment, the sound of a gutter overflowing on to the leads outside her window. She got up and looked out through the streaming panes. The view was almost completely hidden by mist, and her room felt cold with the first approach of autumn. She dressed and went down to breakfast, to find Mrs. Ogden already behind the coffee-pot.

Her mother looked up, smiling. "Many happy returns of the day," she said.

There were two parcels and two letters on Joan's plate. She opened the parcels first; one contained a writing-case, from her mother, the other a book, from Milly. Her letters were from Richard and Elizabeth. She recognized Elizabeth's writing on the unusually large envelope, and something prompted her to open Richard's letter first.

He wrote:

"This is to congratulate you on coming of age, that is if there be cause for congratulation, which, my dear, rests entirely with you. I hope, I believe, that now at last you have made up your mind to strike out for yourself; this is your moment, and I entreat you to seize it."

The letter ended:

"Joan, for the fourth time, please marry me!"

Joan laughed quietly as she folded this epistle and opened the long envelope addressed in Elizabeth's hand. It contained no letter of any kind, only a legal document; the lease of the flat in Bloomsbury.

2

She found Elizabeth in Ralph's study, writing letters. As she came in Elizabeth got up and took both her hands.

"My dear," she said, and kissed her.

Joan sat down. "So you've done it!" was all she found to say.

"You mean the flat? Yes, it's my birthday present to you—aren't you pleased, Joan?"

"Elizabeth," Joan tried to speak quietly, "you shouldn't have done this until we'd talked things over again; when did you sign the lease?"

Elizabeth stiffened. "That's not the point," she said quickly. "The point is what do you mean about talking things over again? Our plans were decided long ago."

Joan faltered. "Don't get angry, Elizabeth, only listen; I don't know how to say it, you paralyse me, I'm afraid of you!"

"Afraid of me?"

"Yes, of you; terribly, horribly afraid of you and of myself. Elizabeth, it's my mother; I don't see how I can leave her, now that Milly's gone. Wait; you've no idea how helpless she is. She seems ill, and we never keep a servant, these days—what would she do all alone in the house? She depends so much on me; why, since Father's death she can't even keep the tradesmen's books in order, and with no one to look after her I think she'd ruin herself, she seems to have lost all idea about money. We must wait just a little longer in any case, say a year. Elizabeth, don't look like that! Perhaps she'll pull herself together, I don't know; all I know is that I can't come now——" She paused, catching her breath.

Elizabeth had come close and was standing over her, looking down with inscrutable eyes. "Her eyes look like the sea in a mist," Joan thought helplessly, reverting to the old habit of drawing comparisons. But Elizabeth was speaking in a calm, cold voice.

"I see," she was saying. "You've changed your mind. You don't want to come and live with me, after all; perhaps the idea is distasteful to you? Of course we should be dirt poor."

Joan sprang up, shaking with anger. "You know you're lying!" she said.

Elizabeth smiled. "Am I? Oh no, I don't think so, Joan. It's all quite clear, surely. I've been a fool, that's all; only I think it would have been better, worthier, to have been frank with me from the first. I will not wait a year, or a month, for that matter; either you come now or I shall go."

"Go, Elizabeth?"

"Yes, go!"

"But where?"

"Anywhere, so long as it's away from Seabourne and you. I've had enough of this existence; even you, Joan, are not worth it. I'm going before it's too late to go, before I get so deeply rooted that I can't free myself."

Joan said dully: "If you leave me, I think—I don't think I can bear it."

"Then come with me."

"No, I can't."

"You can. You're quite free except in your own imagination, and your mother is not ill except in hers. You'd find that she'd get on all right once she hadn't got you as an audience; naturally she'll depend on you as long as you let her. But I say to you, don't let her, she's little short of a vampire! Well, let her vampire herself for a change, she shall certainly not vampire me; if you choose to be drained dry, I do not. Good God! You and she between you are enough to drive anyone insane!"

Joan faced her with bright, desperate eyes. "Elizabeth, you can't go away, I need you too much."

"I must go away."

"But I tell you I can't let you go!"

"Oh, yes, you can, Joan; you need your self-esteem much more than you need me; you'll be able to look upon yourself as a martyr, you see, and that'll console you."

"Don't, Elizabeth!"

"You'll be able to wallow in a bog of sentimentality and to pat yourself on the head because you're not as other men. You have a sense of duty, whereas I—— You'll feel that you are offering yourself as a sacrifice. Oh, I know it all, and it makes me sick, sick, do you hear? Positively sick. And you actually expect me to sympathize. Perhaps you expect me to praise you, to tell you what a really fine fellow I think you, and that I feel honoured to follow in your trail and be permitted to offer you a cup of cold water from time to time. Is that what you want? Well, then, you won't get it from me; you've had too much from me already, Joan, and what are you giving me in return?"

Joan said: "Not much, but all I have."

Elizabeth laughed. "All you have! Well, it's not enough, not nearly enough; if this is all you have, then you're too poor a thing for me. You see, I too have my ideals, and you don't fulfil them. You're the veriest self-deceiver, Joan! You think you're staying on here because you can't bring yourself to hurt your mother. It's not that at all; it's because you can't bear to hurt yourself in the process. It's yourself you love. Well, I've had enough; it's no good our trying to understand each other, it's better to make the break here and now."

Joan held out her hand. "Good-bye, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth ignored the hand. "Good-bye," she said, and turned away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 1

"Where'S Elizabeth?" asked Mrs. Ogden curiously. "Have you two quarrelled at last?"

Joan did not answer; she went on dusting the drawing-room mechanically; the servant had left and she and her mother were alone.

"I must go and put the meat in the oven," she said, leaving the room.

She put the joint in the oven and, turning to the sink, began peeling potatoes; then she rinsed them and put them to boil. The breakfast things were waiting to be washed up; an incredible lot of them for two people to have used, Joan thought. She hated the feeling of cold grease on her fingers; she could not find the mop and the skummed water crept up her bare wrists. But much as she detested this washing-up process, she prolonged it intentionally—it was something to do.

The potatoes boiled over; she moved the saucepan to a cooler spot and, finding a broom, swept the kitchen. Where was Elizabeth? She had left Seabourne for London; so much she had learnt from the porter at the station, but where was she now? It was a week since they had quarrelled, but it seemed like years. And Elizabeth did not write; she must be too angry, too bitterly disillusioned! She fetched the dust-pan and took up the dust; it lay in great unsightly flakes where she had swept it from corners neglected by the discontented maid. Elizabeth had sacrificed all the best years of her life for this, to be deserted, left in the end; she had offered all that she had to give, and she, Joan, had spurned it, hurled it back in her face—in Elizabeth's face!

The bell clanged. "Milk!"

Joan fetched a jug.

"How much will you have to-day, miss?"

"I don't know," said Joan vaguely.

With a look of surprise the man filled the jug. "Fine weather, miss, after the rain."

"Yes—oh, yes, very fine."

She would write to her, go to her, anything but this; she would humble herself, implore forgiveness. If only she knew where she was; she would ask Ralph. No, what was the good? Elizabeth would not have her now, she did not want a weak-kneed creature who didn't know her own mind; she liked dependable, strong people like herself.

"Joan!" came a voice.

"Yes, Mother?"

"Bring me my nerve tonic, dear."

"Yes, Mother."

"Oh, and bring me my shawl, I feel cold; you'll find it in my top right-hand drawer."

She obeyed, fetching the shawl, measuring out the tonic in a medicine glass.

"I don't feel it's doing me much good," Mrs. Ogden complained. "I slept very badly again last night."

"You must give it time," said Joan comfortingly. "This is only your third dose."

Where was Elizabeth? Had she found a new friend to share the flat?

"You might go and buy me that trimming, some time to-day, darling; it may be all sold out if we wait."

"All right, I'll go when I've tidied the house, Mother; they had plenty of it yesterday."

But Mrs. Ogden persisted: "I have a feeling that it will all be sold out and I'm short by just half a yard. Can't you finish the house when you come back?"

"I'd rather get on and finish it now, Mother; I'm quite sure it'll be all right."

Mrs. Ogden reverted to the subject of the trimming again during lunch, and several times before tea. "We shall never get it," she complained querulously. "I feel sure it'll all be sold out!"

She allowed herself to be a little monotonous these days, clinging to an idea with wearying persistence. In her husband's lifetime she would have been more careful not to irritate, but the restraint of his temper being removed, she no longer felt the necessity for keeping herself in hand.

Joan bought the trimming just before the shop closed, and this done, they settled down to their high tea. Joan cleared the table wearily, answered two advertisements of general servants, and finally took her book to the lamp. It was a new book that Richard had just sent her. Richard did not yet suspect what she had done; he probably thought she was busily making plans for her departure; how furious he would be when he knew. But Richard didn't count; he could think what he liked, for all she cared.

She could not read, the book seemed beyond her comprehension, or was it all nonsense?

Mrs. Ogden's voice broke the silence: "Joan, it's ten o'clock!"

"Is it, dear?"

"Yes, shall we go to bed?"

"You go, I'll come presently."

"Well, don't stay up too late; it makes me nervous, I can't sleep properly till I know you're in bed."

"I shan't wake you coming upstairs."

"I never go to sleep at all until I hear your door close. Have you written about those servants?"

"Yes, I'm going out now to post the letters."

"Then I'll wait up until you get back, darling."

"No, please not, Mother; I have a key."

"But it makes me nervous when I know you're out. Run along, dear; I shall wait for you."

"Very well," said Joan, "I shan't be long."

2

Mrs. Benson called and talked about Richard, and she looked at Joan as she spoke. She would have liked her Richard to have this girl, if, as she had begun to suspect, he had set his heart on her.

"You and Richard have so much in common, Joan; he's always writing to me about you."

Mrs. Ogden said nothing.

"When are you going to Cambridge?" Mrs. Benson continued hurriedly, bridging an awkward pause.

Joan looked at her mother, but she was still silent.

"Aren't you going?" Mrs. Benson persisted.

Joan hesitated. "Well, you see, it's rather difficult just now——"

"She doesn't want to leave me," said Mrs. Ogden with a little smile. "She thinks I'm such a helpless creature!"

"But, surely——" Mrs. Benson began, and then stopped.

The atmosphere of this house was beginning to depress her, and in a sudden flash she realized the cause of her depression. There was something shabby about everything here, both physical and mental. Inanimate things, and people, were letting themselves go, sliding; Mrs. Ogden was sliding very fast—and Joan? She let her eyes dwell on the girl attentively. No, Joan had only begun to slip a little as yet, but there were signs; her mouth drooped too much at the corners, her lips were too pale and her strong hands fidgeted restlessly, but otherwise she was intact so far, and how spruce she looked! Mrs. Benson envied this talent for tidiness, which had never been hers. Yes, on the whole, Joan's clothes suited her, it would be difficult to conceive of her dressed otherwise; still, the short hair was rather exaggerated. She wondered if Richard would make her let it grow when they were married, for, of course, she would marry him in the end.

"So Elizabeth has gone to London," she said after a silence, feeling that she had made a bad slip the moment the words were out.

"Yes, she went more than a week ago," Joan replied.

Mrs. Ogden looked up with interest. "But surely not for long? How queer of you not to have told me, dear."

"I thought I had," said Joan untruthfully.

"I heard from her this morning," Mrs. Benson plunged on, feeling that she might as well be killed for a sheep as a lamb. "She's got a very good post as librarian to some society."

Then Elizabeth was in London!

"Well, of all the extraordinary things!" said Mrs. Ogden, genuinely surprised. "Joan, you never told me a word!"

"I didn't know about the post as librarian, Mother."

"No, but you knew that Elizabeth had left Seabourne for good."

"Yes, I knew that——"

"Well then, fancy your not telling me; fancy her not coming here to say good-bye—extraordinary!" Her voice was shaking a little with excitement now. "What made her go off suddenly, like that? Surely you and she haven't quarrelled, Joan?"

Joan looked at Mrs. Benson; did she know? Probably, as Elizabeth had written to her. Mrs. Benson smiled and nodded sympathetically, her motherly eyes said plainly: "Never mind, dear, it's not so bad as you think; you've got my Richard." But Joan ignored the comfort. What could Mrs. Benson know of all this, what could anyone know but Elizabeth and herself.

She said: "I think she was tired of Seabourne, Mother. Elizabeth was always very clever, and there's nothing to be clever about here."

Mrs. Ogden smiled quietly. "Elizabeth was certainly very clever; but what about her interest in you?"

"Yes, she took a great interest in me; she believed in me, I think, but—oh, well, she couldn't wait for ever, could she?"

She thought: "If they go on like this I shall scream!"

"Well, I must be going," said Mrs. Benson uncomfortably. "Come up to-morrow and lunch with me, Joan; half-past one, and I hope you'll come too, Mrs. Ogden."

Mrs. Ogden sighed. "I never go anywhere since James's death. It may be morbid of me, but I feel I can't bear to, somehow."

"Oh, but do come, please. We shall be quite alone and it'll do you good."

The smile that played round Mrs. Ogden's lips was apologetic and sad; it seemed to repudiate gently the suggestion that anything, however kindly meant, could do her good, now.

"I think not," she said, pressing Mrs. Benson's hand. "But thank you all the same for wanting such a dull guest."

Mrs. Benson thought: "A tiresome woman; she's overdoing her bereavement, poor thing."

The door had scarcely closed on the departing guest when Mrs. Ogden turned to her daughter. "Is this true?" she demanded, holding out her hands.

"Is what true?"

"About Elizabeth."

"Oh, for God's sake!" exclaimed Joan gruffly, "don't let's go into all that. Elizabeth has gone away, isn't that enough? Aren't you satisfied?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Ogden, and her voice was wonderfully firm and self-possessed. "I am quite satisfied, Joan."

3

At Christmas, Milly came home, a little taller, a little thinner, but prettier than ever. Joan was glad enough of her sister's brief visit, for it broke the monotony of the house.

Milly was happy, self-satisfied and friendly. She seemed to look upon the episode of Mr. Thompson as an escapade of her foolish youth; she had become very grown-up and experienced. She had a great deal to tell of her life in London; she shared rooms with a girl called Harriet Nelson, a singer. Harriet was clever and fat. You had to be fat if you wanted to be an operatic singer, and Harriet had a marvellous soprano voice. She had taken the principal part in the College opera last year, but unfortunately she couldn't act, she just lumbered about and sang divinely.

Milly said that Harriet was not a bad sort, but rather irritating and inclined to show off her French. She did speak French pretty well, having had a French nurse before her family had lost their money. Her father had been a manager in some big works up north, they had been quite well off during his lifetime; Harriet was always bragging about their big house and the fact that she used to hunt. Milly didn't believe a word of it. Still, Harriet always seemed to have plenty to spend, even now. Milly complained of shortness of money, one felt it when it came to providing teas and things.

Then there was Cassy Ryan, another singer who also had a wonderful voice and was a born actress as well. She was a great darling. Milly would have liked to chum up with her, her diggings were just above Milly's and Harriet's. They had high jinks up there occasionally, judging by the row they made after hours; they had nearly been caught by "Old Scout," the matron, one night, and had only just had time to empty the coffee down the lavatory and jump into bed with the cakes. Milly wished that she had been one of that party, but she didn't know Cassy very well; Harriet did, but was rather jealous and liked keeping her friends to herself. Cassy's father had been a butcher; Cassy said that he used to get drunk and beat her mother; and one day he had got into a frenzy and had thrown all the carcasses about the shop. One of them had hit Cassy and her lip had been cut open by a piece of bone; she still had the scar of it. But it didn't matter about Cassy's father having been a butcher; Cassy belonged to the aristocracy of brains, that was the only thing that really counted.

The violin students were rather a dull lot with the exception of Renée Fabre, who was beautiful. She was Andros's favourite pupil. Milly thought that he pushed her rather to the detriment of the others; but it really didn't matter, because Renée would be well off hands when Milly wished to take the field.

Andros was a great dear; he wore a pig-skin belt instead of braces, and when he played his waistcoat hitched up and you saw the belt and buckle; it was very attractive. He had a blue-black beard, which he combed and brushed, and really beautiful black eyes. He was very Spanish indeed, they said that he had cried like a baby over his first London fog, he missed the sunshine so much.

You were allowed to go and see people, and Milly had gone once or twice to Sunday luncheon with Harriet's family in Brondesbury. Her mother was a brick; nothing was good enough for Harriet, special dishes were cooked when it was known that she was bringing friends home.

Milly babbled on day after day; when she wasn't talking about her new life she was making fun of the old one. Seabourne provided great scope for her wit; she enjoyed walking up and down the esplanade, ridiculing the inhabitants.

"What a queer crew, Joan, just look at them! They think they're alive, too, and that's the funniest thing about them."

Joan tried to enter in and to appear amused and interested, but she was very heavy of heart. And in addition to this a certain new commonness about her sister jarred her; Milly had grown second-rate and her sense of humour was second-rate too. Still, she was happy and, so far as Joan knew, good, and the other thing mattered so little after all. Mr. Thompson had left Seabourne, so there was really nothing to worry about so far as Milly was concerned; she was launched, and if she came to shipwreck later on it would not be Joan's fault, she had done everything she could for Milly.

There was no mutual understanding between them; Joan felt no temptation to take her sister into her confidence. Milly had received the news of Elizabeth's departure much as she always took things that did not concern her personally—listening with half an ear, while apparently thinking of something else. She had sympathized perfunctorily: "Poor old Joan, what a beastly shame!" But her voice had lacked conviction. After all, it was not so bad for Joan, who had no talent in particular, it was when you had the artistic temperament that things went deep with you. Joan had retired into her shell at this obvious lack of interest, and the subject was not discussed any more.

Milly seemed to take it for granted that Joan had given up all idea of Cambridge. "All I ask," she said laughing, "is that you don't grow to look like them."

"Like who?" Joan asked sharply, nettled by Milly's manner.

"Like the rest of the Seabourne freaks."

"Oh, don't get anxious about me; I may change my mind and go up next year, after all."

"Not you!" said Milly with disturbing conviction.

On the whole, however, the holidays passed peaceably enough. They avoided having rows, which was always to the good, and when at last Milly's trunks were packed and on the fly, Joan felt regretful that her sister was really going; Milly was rather amusing after all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 1

THE winter dragged on into spring, a late spring, but wonderfully rewarding when it came. Everything connected with the earth seemed to burst out into fulfilment all in a night; there was a feeling of exuberance and intense colour everywhere, which reflected itself in people's spirits, making them jolly. The milkman whistled loudly and clanked his cans for the sheer joy of making a noise. They had a servant again at Leaside, so that Joan no longer exchanged the time of day with him at the back door, but she stood at the dining-room window and watched him swinging down the street, pushing his little chariot in front of him; a red-haired and rosy man, very well contented with life.

"He's contented and I'm miserable," she thought. "Perhaps I should be happier if I were a milkman, and had nothing to long for because there was nothing in me to long with."

2

Far away, in London, Elizabeth strode through Kensington Gardens on her way to work; her head was a little bent, her nostrils dilated, sniffing the air. A chorus of birds hailed her with apparent delight. She noticed several thrushes and at least one blackbird among them. The Albert Memorial came into sight, it glowed like flame in the sun; a pompous and a foolish thing made beautiful.

"I suppose it's spring in Seabourne too," she was thinking, and then: "I wonder if Joan is very unhappy."

She quickened her steps. "Go on, go on, go on!" sang the spring insistently, and then: "Go back, go back, go back! There is something sweeter than ambition." Elizabeth trembled but went on.

To Joan the very glory of it all was an added heart-break. Grief is never so unendurable in suitable company, it finds quite a deal of consolation in the sorrow of others; it feels understood and at home. But on this spring morning in Seabourne Joan's grief found no one to welcome it. Even the servant at Leaside was shouting hymns as she laid the breakfast; she belonged to the Salvation Army and every now and then would pause to clap her hands in rhythm to the jaunty tune.

She carolled, and clapped triumphantly. Joan could hear her from her bedroom upstairs.

Mrs. Ogden heard her too. "Ethel!" she called irritably; "not so much noise, please." She closed her door sharply and kneeling down in front of a newly acquired picture of The Holy Family, began to read a long Matinal Devotion—for Mrs. Ogden was becoming religious. The presence of spring in her room coloured her prayers, giving them an impish vitality. She entreated God with a new note of sincerity and conviction to cast all evil spirits into Hell and keep them there for ever and ever. She made an elaborate private confession, striking her breast considerably more often than the prescribed number of times. "Through my fault, through my fault——" she murmured ecstatically.

3

An amazingly High Church clergyman had been appointed to a living two miles away, and something in the incense and candles he affected had stirred a new emotional excitement in Mrs. Ogden. Her bedside table was strewn with little purple and white booklets: "Steps towards Eternal Life," "Guide to Holy Mass," "The Real Catholic Church." They found their way downstairs at times, and got themselves mixed up with Joan's medical literature.

There appeared to be countless services at "Holy Martyrs," all of which began at inconvenient hours, for Mrs. Ogden was for ever having the times of the meals altered so that she might attend. It was wonderful how she found the strength for these excursions. Two miles there and two back and early service every Sunday morning, for she had become a regular Communicant now, and wet or fine went forth fasting.

Joan understood that the new "priest," as Mrs. Ogden insisted that he should be called, was ascetic, celibate and delicate. His name was Cuthbert Jackson, and he was known to his flock as "Father Cuthbert."

It was not at all unusual for Mrs. Ogden to feel faint on her return from Mass—the congregation called it Mass to annoy the bishop—and once she had actually fainted in the church. Joan had been with her on that occasion and had helped to carry her mother into the vestry; it had been very embarrassing. When, after a severe application of smelling salts, Mrs. Ogden had opened her eyes, there had been much sympathy expressed, and she had insisted on leaving the church via the nave, clinging to her daughter's arm.

She remonstrated with her mother about these early services, but to no effect.

"Oh, Joan! If only you could find Him too!"

"Who?" Joan inquired flippantly; "Father Cuthbert?"

"No, my darling. I didn't mean Father Cuthbert—but then you don't understand!"

Joan was silent, she felt that she was getting hard. It worried her at times, but something in the smug contentment of her mother's new-found faith irritated her beyond endurance. Mrs. Ogden had become so familiar with the Almighty; so soppily sentimental over her Redeemer. Joan could not feel Christianity like this or recognize Christ in this guise. She suspected that Mrs. Ogden put Him only a very little above Father Cuthbert: Father Cuthbert to whom she went every few days to confess the sins that she might have committed but had not. Joan had formed her own picture of Christ, and in it He did not appear as the Redeemer especially reserved for elderly women and anæmic parsons, but as a Being immensely vast and fierce and tender. Hers was a militant, intellectual Christ; the Leader of great armies, the Ruler over the nations of the earth, the Companion of wise men and kings, the Friend of little children and simple people. She felt ashamed and indignant for Him whenever her mother touched on religion, she was so terrifyingly patronizing.

Mrs. Ogden had quickly become the slave of small, pious practices. She went so far as to keep a notebook lest she should forget any of them. They affected the household adversely, they made a lot more work for other people to do. No meat was permitted on Fridays; in fact, they had very little to eat of any kind. It was all absurd and tiresome and pathetic, and obviously bad for the health. The only result of it, so far as Joan could see, was that Mrs. Ogden evinced even less interest than before in domestic concerns, only descending from her vantage ground to find fault. She seemed to be living in another world, while still keeping a watchful eye on her daughter.

She found an excellent new grievance in the fact that Joan resisted all efforts to make her attend church regularly; there was no longer Elizabeth to worry about, so she worried about Joan's soul. Joan was patiently stubborn, she refused to confess to Father Cuthbert or to interest herself in any way in his numerous activities. He came to tea at Mrs. Ogden's request and tried his best, poor man, to wear down what he felt to be Joan's prejudice against him. But he was melodramatic looking and doubtfully clean, and wore a large amethyst cross on his emaciated stomach, and Joan remained unimpressed.

"If you want to be a Catholic," she told her mother afterwards, "why not be a real one and be done with it."

"I am a real one," said Mrs. Ogden.

"Oh no, Mother, you're not, you're only pretending to be. You take the plums out of other people's religion and disregard the rest. I think it's rather mean."

"If you mean the Pope!——" began Mrs. Ogden indignantly.

"Oh, I mean the whole thing; anyhow, it wouldn't suit me."

Mrs. Ogden was offended. "I must ask you not to speak disrespectfully of my religion," she said. "I don't like it."

"Then don't keep on pushing it down my throat."

They started bickering again. Bickering, always bickering; Joan knew that it was intolerable, undignified, that she ought to control herself, but the power of self-control was weakening in her. She was sorry for her mother, for the past that was so largely responsible for Mrs. Ogden's present, but the fact that she felt sorry only irritated her the more. She told herself that if this new religious zeal had been productive of peace she could have been tolerant, but it was not; on the contrary the domestic chaos grew. If Mrs. Ogden had tried her servants before, she did so now ten times more; she nagged with new-found spiritual vigour; it was becoming increasingly difficult to please her.

"It's them meal times, miss," blubbered the latest acquisition to Joan, one morning. "It's the chopping and the changing that's so wearying; I can't stand it, no I can't, I feel quite worn out."

"Don't say you want to leave, Ethel?" Joan implored with a note of despair in her voice.

"But I do! She's never satisfied, miss; she's at me all the time."

"She's at me, too," thought Joan, "and yet I don't seem able to give a month's notice."

4

It was summer again. How monotonously the seasons came round; it was always spring, summer, autumn, or winter; it could never be anything else, that made a year. How many years made a lifetime?

Joan began playing tennis again; one always played tennis every summer at Seabourne, but now she disliked the game. Since Milly's affair with Mr. Thompson the tennis club and its members had become intolerable to her. The members found her dull and probably disliked her; she was so sure of this that she grew self-conscious and abashed in their midst. She wondered sometimes if that was why she found fault with them, because they made her feel shy. She had never made friends, she had been too much wrapped up in Elizabeth. No one was interested in her, no one wanted her. Richard wrote angry letters; she never answered them, but he went on writing just the same. He seemed to take a pleasure in bullying her.

"I shan't come home this summer," he wrote. "I can't see you withering on your stalk. You can marry me if you like; why not, since nothing better offers? But what's the good of talking to you? It's hopeless! I don't know why I waste time in writing; I suppose it's because I'm in love with you. You've disappointed me horribly; I could have stood aside for your work, but you don't want to work, and you make your duty to your mother the excuse. Oh, Joan! I did think you were made of better stuff. I thought you were a real person and not just a bit of flabby toast like the rest of the things at Seabourne."

She had said that she cared less than nothing for his approval or disapproval, but she found she did care after all; not because she loved Richard, but because it was being brought home to her that she, like the rest of mankind, needed approbation. No one approved of her, not even the mother for whose sake she was sacrificing herself. Self-sacrifice was unpopular, it seemed, or was it in some way her own fault? She must be different from other people, a kind of unprepossessing freak. She sat brooding over this at the school-room table, with Richard's last epistle crushed in her hand. Her eyes were bent unseeing on the ink-stained mahogany, but something, perhaps it was a faint sound, made her look up. Elizabeth was standing in the doorway gazing at her.

Joan sprang forward with a cry.

"Hallo, Joan," said Elizabeth calmly, and sat down in the arm-chair.

Joan's voice failed her. She stood and stared, afraid to believe her eyes.

Elizabeth waited; then: "Well?" she queried.

Joan found her voice. "You've come back for the holidays? Thank you for coming to see me."

Elizabeth said: "There's no need to thank me; I came because I wanted to; don't be ridiculous, Joan!"

"But I thought—I understood that you'd had enough of me. I thought my failing you had made you hate me."

"No, I don't hate you, or I shouldn't be here."

"Then I don't understand," said Joan desperately. "Oh! I don't understand!"

Elizabeth said: "No, I know you don't. I don't understand myself, but here I am."

They were silent for a while, eyeing each other like duellists waiting for an opening. Elizabeth leant back in the rickety chair, her enigmatical eyes on the girl's agitated face. She was smiling a little.

"What have you come for?" said Joan, flushing with sudden anger. "If you don't mean to stay, why have you come back to Seabourne? Perhaps you've come to jeer at me. Even Richard hasn't done that!"

Elizabeth stretched her long legs and made as if to stifle a yawn. "I've given up my job," she said.

"You've given up your job in London?"

"Yes."

"But why?"

"Because of you."

"Because of me? You've thrown over your post because of me?"

"Yes; it's queer, isn't it? But I've come back to wait with you a little while longer."

CHAPTER THIRTY 1

IT was extraordinary how Elizabeth's return changed the complexion of things for Joan; strange that one human being, not really beautiful, only a little more than average clever and no longer very young, could, by her mere presence, make others seem so much less trying.

Now that she had Elizabeth again the people at the tennis club, for instance, were miraculously changed. She began to think that she had misjudged them; after all, they were very good sorts and kindly enough, nor did they really seem to be bored with her; she must have imagined it. She found herself more tolerant towards Mrs. Ogden's religiosity. Why shouldn't her mother enjoy herself in her own way! Surely everyone must find their rare pleasures how and where they could. And, oh! the joy of using her brain again! The exhilaration of renewed mental effort, of pitting her mind against Elizabeth's.

"We must work a bit to keep you from getting rusty, Joan, but I can't do much more for you now; you're getting beyond me, and Cambridge must do the rest," Elizabeth said.

Ralph was pleased at his sister's return and welcomed Joan cordially as the chief cause thereof. The atmosphere at his house had become restful, because now it contained three happy people. Joan had never known anything quite like this before; she wondered whether the dead felt as she did when they met those they loved on the other side of the grave. A deep sense of peace enveloped her; Elizabeth felt it too, and they sat very often with clasped hands without speaking, for now their silence drew them closer together than words would have done.

As if by mutual consent they avoided discussing the future. At this time they thought of neither past nor future, but only of their present. And they no longer worked very hard; what was the use? Joan was ready, and, as Elizabeth had said, it was now only a matter of not letting her get rusty, so they slackened the gallop to a walk and began to look about them.

They ransacked Seabourne and the neighbouring towns for diversion, visiting such theatres as there were, making excursions to places of interest that they had lived close to for years yet never seen. They discovered the joys of sailing, setting out of mornings before it was quite light, becoming acquainted together for the first time with the mystery and wonder that is Nature while she still smells drowsy and sweet after sleep.

And they walked. They would go off now for a whole day, lunching wherever they happened to find themselves. Sometimes it would be at a little inn by the roadside and sometimes on the summit of a hill, or in woods, eating biscuits they had stuffed into their pockets before starting.

When Milly came home for her holidays she did not seem surprised to find Elizabeth back in Seabourne. They were relieved at this, for they had both been secretly dreading her questions, which, however, did not come. Milly was not wanted, but they found room for her in their days, nevertheless; she joined them whenever their programme seemed amusing, and because they themselves were so happy they made her welcome.

At this time Elizabeth did her best to placate Mrs. Ogden; she did it entirely for Joan's sake, and although her efforts were rebuffed with coldness, she knew that Joan was the happier for them. Mrs. Ogden was aggrieved and rude; she could not find it in her, poor soul, to compromise over Joan. If she had only met Elizabeth half way, had made even a slight effort to accept things as they were, she would almost certainly have won from her daughter a lifelong gratitude. But she let the moment slip, and so for the time being she found herself ignored.

Contentment agreed with Joan; she grew handsomer that summer, and people noticed it. Now they would turn sometimes and look after the Ogden girls when they passed them in the street, struck by the curious contrast they made. Joan was burnt to the colour of a gipsy; her constant excursions in the open air had brightened her eyes and reddened her lips and given her slim body a supple strength which showed in all her movements. Milly's beauty was a little marred by an ever-present suggestion of delicacy. Her skin was too pink and white for perfect health, and of late dark shadows had appeared under her eyes. However, she seemed in excellent spirits, and never complained, in spite of the fact that she coughed a good deal.

"It's the dry weather," she explained. "The dust irritates my throat."

Her shoulders had taken a slight stoop from the long hours of practice, which contracted her chest, but her playing had improved enormously; she was beginning to acquire real finish and style.

"I shall be earning soon!" she announced triumphantly.

Elizabeth could not resist looking at Joan, but she held her tongue and the dangerous moment passed.

Joan began to find it in her to bless Father Cuthbert and Holy Martyrs, for between them they took up a good deal of Mrs. Ogden's time. To be sure, her eyes were red with secret weeping, and she lost even that remnant of appetite that her religious scruples permitted her; but Joan was happy and selfish to the verge of recklessness. She was like a man reprieved when the noose is already round his throat; for the moment nothing mattered except just being alive. She felt balanced and calm, with the power to see through and beyond the frets and rubs of this everyday life, from which she herself had somehow become exempt.

She and Elizabeth went to tea with Admiral Bourne. It was like the old days, out there in the garden, under the big tree. The admiral eyed them kindly. "Capital, capital!" was all he said. After tea they asked to see the mice, because they knew that it would give him pleasure, and he responded with alacrity, leading the way to the mousery. But although they had gone there to please Admiral Bourne, they stayed on to please themselves; playing with the tame, soft creatures, feeling a sense of contentment as they watched their swift, symmetrical movements and their round bright eyes.

2

They walked home arm in arm through the twilight.

Joan said: "Our life seems new, somehow, Elizabeth, and yet it isn't new. Perhaps it's because you went away. We aren't doing anything very different, only working rather less; but it all seems so new; I feel new myself."

Elizabeth pressed her arm very slightly. "It's as old as the hills," she said.

"What is?" asked Joan.

"Nothing—everything. Did you change those library books?"

"Yes. But listen to me, Elizabeth. I will tell you how your going away and coming back has changed things. I'm changed; I feel softer and harder, more sympathetic and less so. I feel—oh, how shall I put it? I feel like a tiny speck of God that can't help seeing all round and through everything. I seem to know the reason for things, somewhere inside of me, only it won't get right into my brain. I don't think I love Mother any less than I did, and I don't think I really hate Seabourne any less; but I can't worry about her or it, and that's where I've changed. I've got a feeling that Mother had to be and Seabourne had to be and that you and I had to be, too; that it's all just a necessary part of the whole. And after all, Elizabeth, if you hadn't gone away and I hadn't been frightfully unhappy there wouldn't have been your coming back and my happiness over that. I think it was worth the unhappiness."

They stood still, staring at the sunset. A sweet, damp smell was coming up from the ground; there had been a little shower. The sea lay very quiet and vast, flecked here and there with afterglow. Down below them the lights of Seabourne sprang into being, one by one; they looked small and unnaturally bright. The ugly homes from which they shone were mercifully hidden in the dusk. Only their lights appeared, elusive, beckoning, never quite still. Around them little hidden specks of life were making indefinable noises; a blur of rustlings, chirpings, buzzings. They were very busy, these hidden people, with their secret activities. Presently it would be night; already the moon was showing palely opposite the sunset.

Elizabeth turned her gaze away from the sky and looked at Joan. The girl was standing upright with her head a little back. She had taken off her hat, and the queer light fell slantwise across her broad forehead, and dipped into her wide open eyes that held in their depths a look of fear. Her lips were parted as if to speak, but no words came. She stretched out a hand, without looking at Elizabeth, as though groping for protection. Elizabeth took the hand and held it firmly in her own.

"Are you frightened, Joan?" she asked softly.

"A little; how did you know?"

"Your eyes looked scared. Why are you frightened? I thought you were so confident just now."

"I don't know, but it's all so strange, somehow. I think it's the newness I told you about that frightens me, now I come to think of it. You seem new. Do you feel new, Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth dropped the hand and turned away.

"Not particularly," she said; "I'm getting rather old for that sort of thing; if I let myself feel new I might forget how old I'm getting. No, I don't think I'd better feel too new, or you might get more frightened still; you told me you were frightened of me once, do you remember?"

"Oh, rot! I could never be frightened of you, Elizabeth; you're just a bit of me."

"Am I? Well, come on or we'll be late, and I think I'm catching cold."

"Let's walk arm and arm again," Joan pleaded, like a schoolgirl begging a favour, and Elizabeth acquiesced with a short laugh.

3

Milly was obviously not well; she coughed perpetually, and Joan sent for the doctor. He came and sounded her chest and lungs, but found no alarming symptoms. Mrs. Ogden protested fretfully that Joan was always over-fussy when there was nothing to fuss about, and quite unusually indifferent when there was real cause for anxiety. She either could not or would not see that her younger daughter looked other than robust.

Joan had a long talk with her sister about the life at the College. They were pretty well fed, it seemed, but of course no luxuries. Oh, yes, Milly usually went to bed early; she felt too dead tired to want to sit up late. She practised a good many hours a day, whenever she could, in fact; but then that was what she was there for, and she loved that part of it. Couldn't she slack a bit? Good Lord, no! Rather not; she wanted to make some money, and that as soon as possible; you didn't get on by scamping your practising. Joan mustn't fuss, it bored Milly to have her fussing like an old hen. The cough was nothing at all, the doctor had said so. How long had it been going on? Oh, about two months, perhaps a little longer; but, good Lord! it was just a cough! She did wish Joan would shut up.

Elizabeth was anxious too; she felt an inexplicable apprehension about this cough of Milly's. She was glad when the holidays came to an end and Milly and her cough had removed themselves to London.

With her sister's departure, Joan seemed to forget her anxiety. She had fallen into a strangely elated frame of mind and threw off troubles as though they were thistledown.

"Mother seems very busy with her religion," she remarked one day.

Elizabeth agreed.

They fell silent, and then: "Perhaps we can go soon now, Elizabeth; I was thinking that perhaps after Christmas——"

Elizabeth bit her lip. Something in her wanted to cry out in triumph, but she choked it down.

"The flat's let until March," she said quietly.

"Well then, March. Oh! Elizabeth, think of it!"

Elizabeth said: "I never think of anything else—I thought you knew that."

"But you seem so dull about it, aren't you pleased?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid!"

"Of what?"

"Of something happening to prevent it. Don't let's make plans too long ahead."

Joan flushed. "You don't trust me any more," she said, and her voice sounded as though she wanted to cry.

"Trust you? Of course I trust you. Joan, I don't think you know how I feel about all this; it's too much, almost. I feel—oh, well, I can't explain, only it's desperately serious to me."

"And what do you think it is to me?" demanded Joan passionately. "It's more than serious to me!"

"Joan, you've known me for years now. I was your teacher when you were quite little. I used to think you looked like a young colt then, I remember—never mind that—only you've known me too long really to know me; that can happen I think. I often wish I could get inside you and know just how I look to you, what sort of woman I am as you see me, because I don't believe it's the real me. I believe you see your old teacher, and later on your very good and devoted friend. Well, that's all right so far as it goes; that's part of me, but only a part. There's another big bit that's quite different; you saw the edge of it when I left you to go to London. It's not neat and calm and self-possessed at all, and above all it's outrageously discontented and adventurous; it longs for all sorts of things and hates being crossed. This part of me loves life, real life, and beautiful things and brilliant, careless people. It feels young, absurdly so for its age, and it demands the pleasures of youth, cries out for them. I think it cries out all the more because it's been so long denied. This me could be reckless of consequences, greedy of happiness and jealous of competition. It is jealous already of you, Joan, of any interests that seem to take your attention off me, of any affection that might rob me of even a hair's-breadth of you. It wants to keep you all to itself, to have all your love and gratitude, all that makes you; and it wouldn't be contented with less. Well, my dear, this side of me and the side that you know are one and indivisible, they're the two halves of the whole that is Elizabeth Rodney; what do you think of her? Aren't you a little afraid after this revelation?"

Joan laughed quietly. "No," she said, "I'm not a bit afraid. Because, you see, I think I've known the real Elizabeth for a long time now."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE 1

THE tiny study at Alexandra House was bright with flowers, although it was November. The flowers had been the gift of one of Harriet Nelson's youthful admirers, Rosie Wilmot, an art student. The room was littered with a mass of futilities, including torn music and innumerable signed photographs. The guilty smell of cigarette smoke hung on the air, although the window had been opened.

Harriet, plump and pretty, with her red hair and blue eyes, lolled ungracefully in the wicker arm-chair; her thick ankles stretched out in front of her. On a low stool, sufficiently near these same ankles to express humbleness of spirit, crouched Rosie Wilmot.

"Chérie," Harriet was saying with an exaggerated Parisian accent, "you are a naughty child to spend your money on flowers for me!"

"But, darling, you know how I loved buying them!"

Rosie's sallow cheeks flushed at her own daring. Her long brown neck rose up from a band of Liberty embroidery, like the stem of a carefully coloured meerschaum. She rubbed her forehead nervously with a paint-stained hand, fixing her irritatingly intense eyes the while on Harriet's placid face.

Harriet stretched out an indolent hand. "There, there," she said soothingly, "I'm very pleased indeed with the flowers; come and be kissed."

Milly raised scoffing eyes to the ceiling. She made her mouth into a round O, and proceeded to blow smoke rings.

"Let me know when it's all over," she said derisively, "and then we'll boil the kettle."

"You can boil it now," said Harriet, waving Rosie back to her foot-stool.

They proceeded to make tea and toast bread in front of the fire. Milly fetched some rather weary butter and a pot of "Gentleman's Relish" from the bedroom, and Rosie produced her contribution in the shape of a bag of Harriet's favourite cream puffs. She had gone without lunch for two days in order to afford this offering, but as Harriet's strong teeth bit into the billowy cream which oozed out over her chin, Rosie's heart swelled with pleasure; she had her reward.

"Méchante enfant!" exclaimed Harriet, shaking her finger, "you mustn't spend your money like this!"

At that moment the door opened and Joan and Elizabeth walked into the room.

"Good Lord, you!" exclaimed Milly in amazement.

They laughed and came forward, waiting to be introduced.

"Oh, yes; Harriet, this is my sister Joan, and this is Miss Rodney."

Harriet nodded casually.

"This is Rosie Wilmot, Joan; Rosie, Miss Rodney."

Rosie shook hands with a close, intense grip. Her eyes interrogated the new-comers as though they alone held the answer to the riddle of her Universe. Milly dragged up the only remaining chair for Elizabeth.

"You can squat on the floor, Joan," she said, throwing her sister a cushion. "That's right. And now, what on earth are you doing here?"

It was Elizabeth who answered. "We've come up for a fortnight. We're staying with the woman who has my flat."

"But why? Has anything happened?"

"No, of course not. We just thought it would be rather fun."

Milly whistled softly; however, she refrained from further comment.

Harriet was examining Joan. Joan fidgeted; this self-possessed young woman made her feel at a disadvantage.

"You're musical too?" inquired the singer, still staring.

"Oh, no, not a bit; I don't know one note from another."

"Tiens! Then what do you do?"

Joan hesitated. "At the present moment, nothing."

Harriet turned to Elizabeth. "And you?" she inquired. "I feel sure you must do something; you look it."

"I? Oh, I teach Joan."

Milly fidgeted with the tea things; the unexpected arrivals necessitated more hot water. Her sister's sudden appearance with Elizabeth made her vaguely uneasy. How on earth had these two managed to escape, and what did this escape portend? Would it, could it possibly affect her in any way? And they seemed so calm about it; Joan apparently took it as a matter of course that she should come up to London for a fortnight's spree. Milly felt incapable of boiling the kettle again; she poured out some tepid tea and handed it to her sister.

"Is Mother all alone?" she inquired.

Joan smiled at the implied reproach. "No, we've got a very good maid at the moment, though goodness only knows how long she'll stay."

Milly was silent; what could she say? Joan's manner was utterly unconcerned, and in any case, why shouldn't she come up to London for a bit; everyone else did. She felt a little ashamed of herself; hadn't she always been the one to rage against the injustice of their existence, to encourage insubordination? And she owed her own freedom entirely to Joan; Joan had stuck by her like a brick.

"I'm jolly glad you've come," she said, squeezing her sister's hand. "Jolly glad!"

2

Through the open window drifted the sound of innumerable pianos, string instruments and singing; a queer, discordant blur that crystallized every now and then into stray cadences, shrill arpeggios, or snatches of operatic airs. The distorted melody of some familiar ballad would now and then be wafted through the misty atmosphere from the adjacent College. "My dearest heart," sang a loud young voice, only to be submerged again under the wave of other sounds that constantly ebbed and flowed. This queer, almost painful inharmony struck Joan as symbolic. It awed her, as the immense machinery of some steel works she had once seen as a child had awed her. Then, she had been frightened to tears as the great wheels spun and ground, whirring their straining belts. And now as she listened to this other sound she was somehow reminded of her childish terror, of the pistons and valves and wheels and belts that had throbbed and ground and strained. Here was no steel and iron, it is true, but here was a vast machine none the less. Only its parts were composed of flesh and blood, of striving, living human beings, and the sound they produced was such pitiable discord!

Her thoughts were broken into by the consciousness that eyes were upon her; she turned to meet Harriet Nelson's stare.

Harriet smiled and tapped Rosie's shoulder. "Go and find me a handkerchief, in my drawer," she ordered.

The girl went with alacrity, and Joan was motioned to the vacant footstool.

She protested: "Oh, but surely this is Miss Wilmot's place."

"Never mind that, sit down; I want to talk to you." Joan obeyed unwillingly.

"Now tell me about your life. Milly mentions you so seldom, I had no idea she had such an interesting sister; tell me all about yourself; you live with your friend Miss—Miss—Rodney, is that her name? Is she nice? She looks terribly severe."

"Oh, no, I don't live with Miss Rodney; I live with my mother at Seabourne."

"You live there all the year round? Quelle horreur! Why don't you come to London?"

"Well, you see——" began Joan uncomfortably. But at this stage they were interrupted. For some moments Rosie had been standing motionless in the doorway, the clean handkerchief crushed in her hand. Her smouldering eyes had taken in the situation at a glance, and it seemed to her catastrophic. She stood now, paling and flushing by turns, biting her under-lip. Her thin neck was extended and shot forward; the attitude suggested an eagle about to attack. Harriet saw her there well enough, but appeared to notice nothing unusual and continued to talk to Joan. In fact her voice grew slightly louder and more intimate in tone. Rosie drew a quick breath; it was noisy and Harriet looked up impatiently; then her eyes fell to the crushed handkerchief.

"Give it to me, do!" she exclaimed.

Rosie took a step forward as if to obey, but instead she raised her arm and hurled the crumpled linen ball straight at Harriet, then snatching up her coat she fled from the room. Joan jumped up, Elizabeth looked embarrassed and Milly laughed loudly; but Harriet only shrugged her plump shoulders.

"Nom d'un nom!" she murmured softly. "Poor Rosie grows insupportable!"

The situation was somewhat relieved by a knock on the door. "Can I come in?" inquired a pleasant, deep voice.

Cassy Ryan looked from one to another of the group gathered near the tea-table. Her soft brown eyes and over-red lips suggested her Jewish origin. She was a tall girl and as yet only graciously ample.

She turned to Milly. "I've only come for a moment; I want you to try the violin obbligato over with me to-morrow, Milly; I'm not sure of that difficult passage."

She hummed the passage softly in her splendid contralto voice. "It won't take you long; you don't mind, do you?"

"Rather not!" said Milly, introducing her to Joan and Elizabeth.

Cassy turned to Harriet. "What's the matter with Rosie?" she inquired. "I met her on the stairs just now looking as mad as a hatter."

"Oh, she's only in one of her tantrums; she's furious with me at the moment."

Cassy shook her head. "Poor kid, she's half daft at times, I think. You oughtn't to tease her, Harriet."

"Bon Dieu!" exclaimed Harriet, flushing with temper. "I shall forbid her to come here at all if she goes on making these scenes." She pressed a hand to her throat. "It makes my throat ache; I don't believe I've a soupçon of voice left."

She stood up and deliberately tried an ascending scale, while the rest sat silent. Up and up soared the pure, sexless voice, the voice of an undreamt-of choir-boy or an angel; and then, just as the last height was reached, it hazed, it faltered, it failed to attain.

"There you are!" screamed Harriet, forgetting in her agitation how perfectly she could speak French. "What did I tell you? I knew it! That's Rosie's fault, damn her! Damn her! She's probably upset my voice for days to come, and I've got that rehearsal with Stanford to-morrow; my God, it's too awful!"

She paused to try her voice once more, but with the same result. "Where's my inhaler?" she demanded of the room in general.

Milly winked at Cassy as she went into Harriet's bedroom. "Here it is, on your washstand," she called.

Harriet began feverishly to boil up the kettle; she appeared to have completely forgotten Joan and Elizabeth; she spoke in whispers now, addressing all her stifled remarks to Cassy. Milly brought in the inhaler and a bottle of drops; they filled it from the kettle and proceeded to count out the tincture. Harriet sat down heavily with her knees apart; she gripped the ridiculous china bottle in both hands and, applying her lips to the fat glass mouthpiece, proceeded to evoke a series of bubbling, gurgling noises.

Milly drew her sister aside. "You two had better go," she whispered. "Don't try to say good-bye to her; she's in one of her panics, she won't notice your going."

Cassy smiled across at Elizabeth with a finger on her lips; her eyes were full of amusement as she glanced in the direction of her friend. Years afterwards when the names of Cassy Ryan and Harriet Nelson had become famous, when these two old friends and fellow students would be billed together on the huge sheets advertising oratorio or opera, Joan, seeing an announcement of the performance in the papers, would have a sudden vision of that little crowded sitting-room, with Harriet hunched fatly in the wicker arm-chair, the rotund inhaler clasped to her bosom.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 1

THE transition from Seabourne to London had been accomplished so quietly and easily that the first morning Joan woke up on the divan in the sitting-room of Elizabeth's flat she could hardly believe that she was there. She thumped the mattress to reassure herself, and then looked round the study which, by its very strangeness, testified to the glorious truth.

The idea had originated with Elizabeth. "Let's run up to London for a fortnight," she had said, and Joan had acquiesced as though such a thing were an everyday occurrence. And, strangest of all, Mrs. Ogden had taken it resignedly. Perhaps there had been a certain new quality in Joan's voice when she had announced her intention. Perhaps somewhere at the back of her mind Mrs. Ogden was beginning to realize that her daughter was now of an age when maternal commands could be disregarded. Be that as it may, she consented to Joan's cashing a tiny cheque, and beyond engineering a severe migraine on the morning of their departure, offered no greater obstacle to the jaunt than an injured expression and a rather faint voice.

Elizabeth had arranged it all. She had persuaded her tenant to take them in as "paying guests," and had overcome Joan's pride with regard to finances. "You can pay me back in time," she had remarked, and Joan had given in.

The little flat was all that Elizabeth had said, and more. Miss Lesway had put in a small quantity of furniture to tide her over; she was only there until March, when she would move into a flat of her own. But the things that she had brought with her were good, quiet and unobtrusive relics of a bygone country house; they suggested a grandfather, even a great-grandfather for that matter. From the windows of the flat you saw the romantic chimney-pots and roofs that Elizabeth loved, and to your right the topmost branches of the larger trees of the Bloomsbury square. Yes, it was all there and adorable. Miss Lesway had welcomed them as old friends. Tea had been ready on their arrival and flowers on Elizabeth's dressing-table.

2

Beatrice Lesway was a Cambridge woman. She was a pleasant, somewhat squat, practical creature; contented enough, it seemed, with her lot, which was that of a teacher in a High School. Her father had been a hunting Devonshire squire, a rough-and-tumble sort of man having more in common with his beasts than with his family. A kindly man but a mighty spendthrift, a paralysing kind of spendthrift; one who, having no vices on which you could lay your hand, was well-nigh impossible to check. But that was a long time ago, and beyond the dignified Sheraton bookcase and a few similar reminders of the past, Miss Lesway allowed her origin to go unnoticed. Her eyes were so observant and her sense of humour so keen, that she managed to extract a good deal of fun from her drab existence. The pupils interested her; their foibles, their follies, their rather splendid qualities and their less admirable meannesses. She attributed these latter to their up-bringing, blaming home environment for most of the more serious faults in her girls. She liked talking about her work, and had an old-fashioned trick of dropping her "g's" when speaking emphatically, especially when referring to sport. Possibly Squire Lesway had said: "Huntin', racin', fishin', shootin';" in any case his daughter did so very markedly on those rare occasions when she gave rein to her inherited instincts.

"Some of the girls would be all the better for a good day's huntin' on Exmoor, gettin' wet to the skin and havin' their arms tugged out by a half-mouthed Devonshire cob; that's the stuff to make men of 'em, that's the life that knocks the affectation and side out of young females."

Once she said quite seriously: "The trouble is I can't give that girl a sound lickin'; I told her mother it was the only way to cure a liar; but of course she's a liar herself, so she didn't agree with me."

She liked Elizabeth, hence her acceptance of this invasion, and she liked Joan too, after she got used to her, though she looked askance at her hair.

"No good dotting the 'i's,' my dear," had been her comment.

Miss Lesway herself wore Liberty serges of a most unpleasing green, and a string of turgid beads which clinked unhappily on her flat bosom. Her sandy hair was chronically untidy, and what holding together it submitted to was done by celluloid pins that more or less matched her dresses. Her hands and wrists were small and elegant, but although she manicured her shapely nails with immense care, and would soak them in the soap dish while she talked to friends in the evenings, she disdained all stain or polish. On the third finger of her left hand she wore a heavy signet ring that had once belonged to her father. Her feet matched her hands in slimness and breeding, but these she ignored, dooming them perpetually to woollen stockings and wide square-toed shoes, heelless at that.

"Can't afford pneumonia," she had said once when remonstrated with.

The thick-soled, flat shoes permitted full play to the clumping stride which was her natural walk. Her whole appearance left you bewildered; it was a mixed metaphor, a contradiction in style, certainly a little grotesque, and yet you did not laugh.

It was impossible to know what Beatrice Lesway thought of herself, much less to discover what cravings, if any, tore her unfeminine bosom. She managed to give the impression of great frankness, while rarely betraying her private emotions. At times she spoke and acted very much like a man, but at others became the quintessence of old maidishness. If she did not long for the privileges denied to her sex she took them none the less; you gathered that she thought these privileges should be hers by right of some hidden virtue in her own make-up, but that her opinion of women as a whole was low. The feminist movement was going through a period of rest, having temporarily subsided since the days, not so very long ago, when Lady Loo had donned her knickerbockers. But the lull was only the forerunner of a storm which was to break with great violence less than twenty years later. Even now there were debates, discussions, threats, but at these Miss Lesway laughed rudely.

"Bless their little hearts," she chuckled, "they must learn to stop squabbling about their frocks before they sit in Parliament."

"But surely," Elizabeth protested, putting down the evening paper, "a woman's brain is as good as a man's? I cannot see why women should be debarred from a degree, or why they should get lower salaries when they work for the same hours, and I don't see why they should be expected to do nothing more intellectual than darn socks and have babies."

Miss Lesway made a sound of impatience. "And who's to do it if they don't, pray?"

Elizabeth was silent, and Joan, who had not joined in this discussion, was suddenly impressed with what she felt might be the truth about Miss Lesway. Miss Lesway had the brain of a masterful man and the soul of a mother. Probably that untidy, art-serged body of hers was a perpetual battle-ground; no wonder it looked so dishevelled, trampled under as it must be by these two violent rival forces.

"Well, I shall never marry!" Joan announced suddenly.

Miss Lesway looked at her. Joan had expected an outburst, or at least a severe reproof, but, instead, the eyes that met hers were tired, compassionate and almost tender.

Miss Lesway said: "No, I don't think you ever will. God help you!"

3

Everything was new and interesting and altogether delightful to Joan and Elizabeth during this visit. They played with the zest of truant schoolboys. No weather, however diabolical, could daunt them; they put on their mackintoshes and sallied forth in rain, sleet and mud. They got lost in a fog and found themselves in Kensington instead of Bloomsbury. They struggled furiously for overcrowded buses, or filled their lungs with sulphur in the Underground. They stood for hours at the pit doors of theatres, and walked in the British Museum until their feet ached. Joan developed a love of pictures, which she found she shared with Elizabeth, and the mornings that they spent in the galleries were some of their happiest. To Joan, beauty as portrayed by fine art came as a heavenly revelation; she knew for the first time the thrill of looking at someone else's inspired thoughts.

"After all, everything is just thought," she said wisely. "They think, and then they clothe what they've thought in something; this happens to be paint and canvas, but it's all the same thing; thought must be clothed in something so that we can see it."

Elizabeth watched her delightedly. She told herself that it was like putting a geranium cutting in the window; at first it was just all green, then came the little coloured buds and then the bloom. She felt that Joan was growing more in this fortnight than she had done in all her years at Seabourne; growing, expanding, coming nearer to her kingdom, day by day.

4

The fortnight passed all too quickly; it was going and then it was gone. They sat side by side in an empty third-class compartment, rushing back to Seabourne. Everything had changed suddenly for the worse. Their clothes struck them as shabby, now that it no longer mattered. In London, where it really had mattered, they had been quite contented with their appearance. Their bags, on the luggage rack opposite them, looked very worn and battered. How had they ever dared to go up to London at all? They and their possessions belonged so obviously to Seabourne.

Joan took Elizabeth's hand. "Rotten, it's being over!"

"Yes, it's been a good time, but we'll have lots more, Joan."

"Yes—oh, yes!" Why was she so doubtful? Of course they would have lots more, they were going to live together.

She realized now how necessary, how vitally necessary it was that they should live together. Their two weeks in London had emphasized that fact, if it needed emphasizing. In the past she had known two Elizabeths, but now she knew a third; there had been Elizabeth the teacher and Elizabeth the friend. But now there was Elizabeth the perfect companion. There was the Elizabeth who knew so much and was able to make things so clear to you, and so interesting. The Elizabeth who thought only of you, of how to please you and make you happy; the Elizabeth who entered in, who liked what you liked, enjoying all sorts of little things, finding fun at the identical moment when you were wanting to laugh; in fact who thought your own thoughts. This was a wonderful person who could descend with grace to your level or unobtrusively drag you up to hers; an altogether darling, humorous and understanding creature.