she passed the building which "Westminister" was so anxious to
avoid. In its gateway an old couple were just about to separate, one to
the men's, the other to the women's quarters. Their toothless mouths
were close together. "Well, goodnight, Mother!" "Good-night, Father,
good-night-take care o' yourself!"

Once more Bianca hurried on.

It was past nine when she turned into the Old Square, and rang the bell
of her sister's house with the sheer physical desire to rest--somewhere
that was not her home.

At one end of the long, low drawing-room Stephen, in evening dress, was
reading aloud from a review. Cecilia was looking dubiously at his sock,
where she seemed to see a tiny speck of white that might be Stephen. In
the window at the far end Thyme and Martin were exchanging speeches at
short intervals; they made no move at Bianca's entrance; and their faces
said: "We have no use for that handshaking nonsense!"

Receiving Cecilia's little, warm, doubting kiss and Stephen's polite, dry
handshake, Bianca motioned to him not to stop reading. He resumed.
Cecilia, too, resumed her scrutiny of Stephen's sock.

'Oh dear!' she thought. 'I know B.'s come here because she's unhappy.
Poor thing! Poor Hilary! It's that wretched business again, I suppose.'

Skilled in every tone of Stephen's voice, she knew that Bianca's entry
had provoked the same train of thought in him; to her he seemed reading
out these words: 'I disapprove--I disapprove. She's Cis's sister. But
if it wasn't for old Hilary I wouldn't have the subject in the house!'

Bianca, whose subtlety recorded every shade of feeling, could see that
she was not welcome. Leaning back with veil raised, she seemed listening
to Stephen's reading, but in fact she was quivering at the sight of those
two couples.

Couples, couples--for all but her! What crime had she committed? Why was
the china of her cup flawed so that no one could drink from it? Why had
she been made so that nobody could love her? This, the most bitter of
all thoughts, the most tragic of all questionings, haunted her.

The article which Stephen read--explaining exactly how to deal with
people so that from one sort of human being they might become another,
and going on to prove that if, after this conversion, they showed signs
of a reversion, it would then be necessary to know the reason why--fell
dryly on ears listening to that eternal question: Why is it with me as it
is? It is not fair!-