grow old, and boast concerning their grandchildren.
To be told that one could never marry seemed to Jean the crash of all
things. She had no consolation to offer.

Vanna laughed feebly; a dreary-sounding little laugh.

"I don't understand why I feel so quelled," she said musingly.
"Marriage has never entered definitely into my calculations. I have
been content with the present, and have felt no need of it; but I
suppose it lay all the time in the background of my mind, firmly
settled, as a thing that was to be. I took for granted that I should
enjoy my youth; fly about here and there as the mood took me, enjoying
my liberty to the full, and then, when I'd had my fling, about
twenty-six or seven, perhaps, marry some dear man and settle down to
real, serious living. Now I can't, and something has gone out of me and
left a big gap. I feel like a surgeon who has lost his right arm. It's
my profession that has gone--my work in life. I shall have to begin
again."

Jean trembled, and drew nearer, leaning caressingly against her friend's
knee.

"Is he _sure_, dear? Why is he sure? Is there no chance?"

"No! He was not thinking of children. For my own sake it would be
dangerous. I should have a worse chance. He said it would be a sin to
put such a dread into a man's life. That finishes it, you see, Jean!
The more one loved the less it would be possible."

"Yes," breathed Jean softly. Her woman's heart realised at once the
finality of that argument; she saw the shutters descend over her
friend's life, and knew too deep a sorrow for words. The pressure of
her hands, the quiver of her lips, were the most eloquent signs of
fellow feeling. Vanna went on speaking in quiet, level tones:

"I was in the house only half an hour, but when I came out the whole
world seemed changed... The people who passed me in the streets, the
ordinary little groups that one sees every day, all launched a dart as
they passed. A husband and wife strolling along together--not young and
romantic at all, just prosaic and middle-aged, and--_content_. They
were not any happier than I, perhaps, but they had had their time--they
had lived. They had not that restless, craving expression which one
sees on so many faces. They were content... It hurt to see them, and a
big schoolboy, too, walking with his mother. I'm not fond of boys, and
Etons are the ugliest of clothes. He was a lanky, freckled, graceless
thing; but--I wanted him! I