an't imagine what we're coming to!"

On Margery Pendyce's hearing, those words, "I can't imagine what we're
coming to," had fallen for four-and-thirty years, in every sort of
connection, from many persons. It had become part of her life, indeed,
to take it for granted that people could imagine nothing; just as the
solid food and solid comfort of Worsted Skeynes and the misty mornings
and the rain had become part of her life. And it was only the fact that
her nerves were on edge and her heart bursting that made those words seem
intolerable that morning; but habit was even now too strong, and she kept
silence.

The General, to whom an answer was of no great moment, pursued his
thoughts.

"And you mark my words, Margery; the elections will go against us. The
country's in a dangerous state."

Mrs. Pendyce said:

"Oh, do you think the Liberals will really get in?"

From custom there was a shade of anxiety in her voice which she did not
feel.

"Think?" repeated General Pendyce. "I pray every night to God they
won't!"

Folding both hands on the silver knob of his Malacca cane, he stared over
them at the opposing wall; and there was something universal in that
fixed stare, a sort of blank and not quite selfish apprehension. Behind
his personal interests his ancestors had drilled into him the
impossibility of imagining that he did not stand for the welfare of his
country. Mrs. Pendyce, who had so often seen her husband look like that,
leaned out of the window above the noisy street.

The General rose.

"Well," he said, "if I can't do anything for you, Margery, I'll take
myself off; you're busy with your dressmakers. Give my love to Horace,
and tell him not to send me another telegram like that."

And bending stiffly, he pressed her hand with a touch of real courtesy
and kindness, took up his hat, and went away. Mrs. Pendyce, watching him
descend the stairs, watching his stiff sloping shoulders, his head with
its grey hair brushed carefully away from the centre parting, the backs
of his feeble, active knees, put her hand to her breast and sighed, for
with him she seemed to see descending all her past life, and that one
cannot see unmoved.

CHAPTER III

MRS. BELLEW SQUARES HER ACCOUNTS

Mrs. Bellew sat on her bed smoothing out the halves of a letter; by her
side was her jewel-case. Taking from it an amethyst necklet, an emerald
pendant, and a diamond ring, she wrapped them in cottonwool, and put the