shed at this flash of cynical inspiration, and ashamed of such
plain speaking, she checked herself. Hilary had turned away.

Cecilia touched his arm. "Hilary, dear," she said, "isn't there any
chance of you and B---"

Hilary's lips twitched. "I should say not."

Cecilia looked sadly at the floor. Not since Stephen was bad with
pleurisy had she felt so worried. The sight of Hilary's face brought
back her doubts with all their force. It might, of course, be only anger
at the man's impudence, but it might be--she hardly liked to frame her
thought--a more personal feeling.

"Don't you think," she said, "that, anyway, she had better not come here
again?"

Hilary paced the room.

"It's her only safe and certain piece of work; it keeps her independent.
It's much more satisfactory than this sitting. I can't have any hand in
taking it away from her."

Cecilia had never seen him moved like this. Was it possible that he was
not incorrigibly gentle, but had in him some of that animality which she,
in a sense, admired? This uncertainty terribly increased the
difficulties of the situation.

"But, Hilary," she said at last, "are you satisfied about the girl--I
mean, are you satisfied that she really is worth helping?"

"I don't understand."

"I mean," murmured Cecilia, "that we don't know anything about her past."
And, seeing from the movement of his eyebrows that she was touching on
what had evidently been a doubt with him, she went on with great courage:
"Where are her friends and relations? I mean, she may have had
a--adventures."

Hilary withdrew into himself.

"You can hardly expect me," he said, "to go into that with her."

His reply made Cecilia feel ridiculous.

"Well," she said in a hard little voice, "if this is what comes of
helping the poor, I don't see the use of it."

The outburst evoked no reply from Hilary; she felt more tremulous than
ever. The whole thing was so confused, so unnatural. What with the
dark, malignant Hughs and that haunting vision of Bianca, the matter
seemed almost Italian. That a man of Hughs' class might be affected by
the passion of love had somehow never come into her head. She thought of
the back streets she had looked out on from her bedroom window. Could
anything like passion spring up in those dismal alleys? The people who
lived there, poor downtrodden things, had enough to do to keep themselves
alive. She knew all about them; they were in the air; their cond