rrender it.
But she was young and did not know that yet. All she knew was that she
would have to face these immediate troubles alone, that she would not
see him for perhaps a week, that she would not know what his people at
home were doing, and that she must not let any of these thoughts come
up into her brain. She must keep them all back: if she did not, she
would tumble into some foolish precipitate action.

When she reached home she was obstinate and determined. At once she
found that something was the matter. During luncheon the two aunts sat
like statues (Aunt Elizabeth a dumpy and squat one). Aunt Anne's
aloofness was coloured now with a very human anger. Maggie realised
with surprise that she had never seen her angry before. She had been
indignant, disapproving, superior, forbidding, but never angry. The
eyes were hard now, not with religious reserve but simply with bad
temper. The mist of anger dimmed the room, it was in the potatoes and
the cold dry mutton, especially was it in the hard pallid knobs of
cheese. And Aunt Elizabeth, although she was frightened by her sister's
anger on this occasion, shared in it. She pursed her lips at Maggie and
moved her fat, podgy hand as though she would like to smack Maggie's
cheeks.

Maggie was frightened--really frightened. The line of bold independence
was all very well, but now risks were attached to it. If she swiftly
tossed her head and told her aunts that she would walk out of the house
they might say "Walk!" and that would precipitate Martin's crisis. She
knew from the way he had looked at her that morning that his thoughts
were with his father, and it showed that she had travelled through the
first stage of her intimacy with him, that she could not trust him to
put her before his own family troubles. At all costs she must keep him
safe through these next difficult weeks, and the best way to keep him
safe was herself to remain quietly at home.

Of all this she thought as she swallowed the hostile knobs of cheese
and drank the tepid, gritty coffee.

She followed her aunts upstairs, and was not at all surprised when Aunt
Elizabeth, with an agitated murmur, vanished into higher regions. She
followed Aunt Anne into the drawing-room.

Aunt Anne sat in the stiff-backed tapestry chair by the fire. Maggie
stood in front of her. She was disarmed at that all-important moment by
her desperate sensation of defenceless loneliness. It was as though
half of herself--the man-ha