people are alone,—we’re on our second honeymoon,—I am really going to put myself to school again. After all we are founded on the past, aren’t we, Mr. Hewet? My soldier son says that there is still a great deal to be learnt from Hannibal. One ought to know so much more than one does. Somehow when I read the paper, I begin with the debates first, and, before I’ve done, the door always opens—we’re a very large party at home—and so one never does think enough about the ancients and all they’ve done for us. But you begin at the beginning, Miss Allan.”
“When I think of the Greeks I think of them as naked black men,” said Miss Allan, “which is quite incorrect, I’m sure.”
“And you, Mr. Hirst?” said Mrs. Thornbury, perceiving that the gaunt young man was near. “I’m sure you read everything.”
“I confine myself to cricket and crime,” said Hirst. “The worst of coming from the upper classes,” he continued, “is that one’s friends are never killed in railway accidents.”
Mr. Thornbury threw down the paper, and emphatically dropped his eyeglasses. The sheets fell in the middle of the group, and were eyed by them all.
“It’s not gone well?” asked his wife solicitously.
Hewet picked up one sheet and read, “A lady was walking yesterday in the streets of Westminster when she perceived a cat in the window of a deserted house. The famished animal—”
“I shall be out of it anyway,” Mr. Thornbury interrupted peevishly.
“Cats are often forgotten,” Miss Allan remarked.
“Remember, William, the Prime Minister has reserved his answer,” said Mrs. Thornbury.
“At the age of eighty, Mr. Joshua Harris of Eeles Park, Brondesbury, has had a son,” said Hirst.
“… The famished animal, which had been noticed by workmen for some days, was rescued, but—by Jove! it bit the man’s hand to pieces!”
“Wild with hunger, I suppose,” commented Miss Allan.
“You’re all neglecting the chief advantage of being abroad,” said Mr. Hughling Elliot, who had joined the group. “You might read your news in French, which is equivalent to reading no news at all.”
Mr. Elliot had a profound knowledge of Coptic, which he concealed as far as possible, and quoted French phrases so exquisitely that it was hard to believe that he could also speak the ordinary tongue. He had an immense respect for the French.
“Coming?” he asked the two young men. “We ought to start before it’s really hot.”
“I beg of you not to walk in the heat, Hugh,” his wife pleaded, giving him an angular parcel enclosing half a chicken and some raisins.
“Hewet will be our barometer,” said Mr. Elliot. “He will melt before I shall.” Indeed, if so much as a drop had melted off his spare ribs, the bones would have lain bare. The ladies were left alone now, surrounding The Times which lay upon the floor. Miss Allan looked at her father’s watch.
“Ten minutes to eleven,” she observed.
“Work?” asked Mrs. Thornbury.
“Work,” replied Miss Allan.
“What a fine creature she is!” murmured Mrs. Thornbury, as the square figure in its manly coat withdrew.
“And I’m sure she has a hard life,” sighed Mrs. Elliot.
“Oh, it is a hard life,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “Unmarried women—earning their livings—it’s the hardest life of all.”
“Yet she seems pretty cheerful,” said Mrs. Elliot.
“It must be very interesting,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “I envy her her knowledge.”
“But that isn’t what women want,” said Mrs. Elliot.
“I’m afraid it’s all a great many can hope to have,” sighed Mrs. Thornbury. “I believe that there are more of us than ever now. Sir Harley Lethbridge was telling me only the other day how difficult it is to find boys for the navy—partly because of their teeth, it is true. And I have heard young women talk quite openly of—”
“Dreadful, dreadful!” exclaimed Mrs. Elliot. “The crown, as one may call it, of a woman’s life. I, who know what it is to be childless—” she sighed and ceased.
“But we must not be hard,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “The conditions are so much changed since I was a young woman.”
“Surely maternity does not change,” said Mrs. Elliot.
“In some ways we can learn a great deal from the young,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “I learn so much from my own daughters.”
“I believe that Hughling really doesn’t mind,” said Mrs. Elliot. “But then he has his work.”
“Women without children can do so much for the children of others,” observed Mrs. Thornbury gently.
“I sketch a great deal,” said Mrs. Elliot, “but that isn’t really an occupation. It’s so disconcerting to find girls just beginning doing better than one does oneself! And nature’s difficult—very difficult!”
“Are there not institutions—clubs—that you could help?” asked Mrs. Thornbury.
“They are so exhausting,” said Mrs. Elliot. “I look strong, because of my colour; but I’m not; the youngest of eleven never is.”
“If the mother is careful before,” said Mrs. Thornbury judicially, “there is no reason why the size of the family should make any difference. And there is no training like the training that brothers and sisters give each other. I am sure of that. I have seen it with my own children. My eldest boy Ralph, for instance—”
But Mrs. Elliot was inattentive to the elder lady’s experience, and her eyes wandered about the hall.
“My mother had two miscarriages, I know,” she said suddenly. “The first because she met one of those great dancing bears—they shouldn’t be allowed; the other—it was a horrid story—our cook had a child and there was a dinner party. So I put my dyspepsia down to that.”
“And a miscarriage is so much worse than a confinement,” Mrs. Thornbury murmured absentmindedly, adjusting her spectacles and picking up The Times. Mrs. Elliot rose and fluttered away.
When she had heard what one of the million voices speaking in the paper had to say, and noticed that a cousin of hers had married a clergyman at Minehead—ignoring the drunken women, the golden animals of Crete, the movements of battalions, the dinners, the reforms, the fires, the indignant, the learned and benevolent, Mrs. Thornbury went upstairs to write a letter for the mail.
The paper lay directly beneath the clock, the two together seeming to represent stability in a changing world. Mr. Perrott passed through; Mr. Venning poised for a second on the edge of a table. Mrs. Paley was wheeled past. Susan followed. Mr. Venning strolled after her. Portuguese military families, their clothes suggesting late rising in untidy bedrooms,
