eaking
voice; and what a fascination, what a spell lay in that. Such was the
liveliness of her face and the beauty of her colouring that there was
not a man into whose eyes at the sight of her there did not leap a
flame of intensest interest; but, when he heard her voice, the flame in
that man's eyes was caught and fixed. It was the same with every man,
educated and uneducated, old, young, desirable themselves or
undesirable, men of her own world and bus-conductors, generals and
Tommies--during the war she had had a perplexing time--bishops equally
with vergers--round about her confirmation startling occurrences had
taken place--wholesome and unwholesome, rich and penniless, brilliant
or idiotic; and it made no difference at all what they were, or how
long and securely married: into the eyes of every one of them, when
they saw her, leapt this flame, and when they heard her it stayed
there.

Scrap had had enough of this look. It only led to difficulties.
At first it had delighted her. She had been excited, triumphant. To
be apparently incapable of doing or saying the wrong thing, to be
applauded, listened to, petted, adored wherever she went, and when she
came home to find nothing there either but the most indulgent proud
fondness--why, how extremely pleasant. And so easy, too. No
preparation necessary for this achievement, no hard work, nothing to
learn. She need take no trouble. She had only to appear, and
presently say something.

But gradually experiences gathered round her. After all, she had
to take trouble, she had to make efforts, because, she discovered with
astonishment and rage, she had to defend herself. That look, that
leaping look, meant that she was going to be grabbed at. Some of those
who had it were more humble than others, especially if they were young,
but they all, according to their several ability, grabbed; and she who
had entered the world so jauntily, with her head in the air and the
completest confidence in anybody whose hair was grey, began to
distrust, and then to dislike, and soon to shrink away from, and
presently to be indignant. Sometimes it was just as if she didn't
belong to herself, wasn't her own at all, but was regarded as a
universal thing, a sort of beauty-of-all-work. Really men . . . And
she found herself involved in queer vague quarrels, being curiously
hated. Really women . . . And when the war came, and she flung
herself into it along with everybody else, it f