ow and matter-of-fact, was worse than her
emotion.

"No, m'm, he isn't mad."

Crossing to the hearth-whose Persian-blue tiling had taken her so long to
find--Cecilia stood beneath a reproduction of Botticelli's "Primavera,"
and looked doubtfully at Mrs. Hughs. The Persian kitten, sleepy and
disturbed on the bosom of her blouse, gazed up into her face. 'Consider
me,' it seemed to say; 'I am worth consideration; I am of a piece with
you, and everything round you. We are both elegant and rather slender; we
both love warmth and kittens; we both dislike interference with our fur.
You took a long time to buy me, so as to get me perfect. You see that
woman over there! I sat on her lap this morning while she was sewing
your curtains. She has no right in here; she's not what she seems; she
can bite and scratch, I know; her lap is skinny; she drops water from her
eyes. She made me wet all down my back. Be careful what you're doing,
or she'll make you wet down yours!'

All that was like the little Persian kitten within Cecilia--cosiness and
love of pretty things, attachment to her own abode with its high-art
lining, love for her mate and her own kitten, Thyme, dread of
disturbance--all made her long to push this woman from the room; this
woman with the skimpy figure, and eyes that, for all their patience, had
in them something virago-like; this woman who carried about with her an
atmosphere of sordid grief, of squalid menaces, and scandal. She longed
all the more because it could well be seen from the seamstress's helpless
attitude that she too would have liked an easy life. To dwell on things
like this was to feel more than thirty-eight!

Cecilia had no pocket, Providence having removed it now for some time
past, but from her little bag she drew forth the two essentials of
gentility. Taking her nose, which she feared was shining, gently within
one, she fumbled in the other. And again she looked doubtfully at Mrs.
Hughs. Her heart said: 'Give the poor woman half a sovereign; it might
comfort her!' But her brain said: 'I owe her four-and-six; after what
she's just been saying about her husband and that girl and Hilary, it
mayn't be safe to give her more.' She held out two half-crowns, and had
an inspiration: "I shall mention to my sister what you've said; you can
tell your husband that!"

No sooner had she said this, however, than she saw, from a little smile
devoid of merriment and quickly extinguished, that Mrs. H