Perhaps not. But must one be either the one or the other?"

"I am quite sure you are not the latter."

"I should be sorry to be the former," she said, with unusual
earnestness.

Something in his voice made her suddenly feel very sad, with a coldness
of sorrow that was like frost binding her heart. She looked across the
big table. A long window was opposite to her. Through it she saw distant
tree-tops rising into the misty grey sky. And she thought of the silence
of the bare woods, so near and yet so remote. Why was life so heartless?
Why could not he and she understand each other? Why had she nothing to
rest on? Winter! She had entered into her winter, irrevocable, cold and
leafless. But the longing for warmth would not leave her. Winter was
terrible to her, would always be terrible.

How the Duchess of Wellingborough was laughing! Her broad shoulders
shook. She threw up her chin and showed her white teeth. To her life
was surely a splendid game, even in widowhood and old age. The crowd was
enough for her. She fed on good stories. And so no doubt she would never
go hungry. For a moment Lady Sellingworth thought that she envied the
Duchess. But then something deep down in her knew it was not so. To need
much--that is greater and better, even if the need brings that sorrow
which perhaps many know nothing of. At that moment she connected desire
with aspiration, and felt released from her lowest part.

Craven was speaking to Mrs. Farringdon; Lady Sellingworth heard her
saying, in her curiously muffled, contralto voice:

"Old Bean is a wonderful horse. I fancy him for the next Derby. But
some people say he is not a stayer. On a hard course he might crack up.
Still, he's got a good deal of bone. The Farnham stable is absolutely
rotten at present. Don't go near it."

"Oh, why did I come?" Lady Sellingworth thought, as she turned again to
the Baron.

She had lost the habit of the world in her long seclusion. In her
retreat she had developed into a sentimentalist. Or perhaps she had
always been one, and old age had made the tendency more definite, had
fixed her in the torturing groove. She began to feel terribly out of
place in this company, but she knew that she did not look out of place.
She had long ago mastered the art of appearance, and could never forget
that cunning. And she gossiped gaily with the Baron until luncheon at
last was over.

As she went towards the drawing-room Mrs. Ackroyde joined her.

"You were