tion? She was indeed touching as she lay.
She wanted to keep him near her and she could not. She wanted acutely to
go to the north, and she was imprisoned. She would have to pass the
night alone, and the next night alone. Danger and great suffering lay in
front of her. And she was she; she was herself, with all her terrific
instincts. She could not alter herself. Did she not merit compassion?
Still, _he must go to his club_.

He kissed her tenderly. She half lifted her head, and kissed him exactly
as she kissed his children, like a giantess, and as though she was the
ark of wisdom from everlasting, and he a callow boy whose safety
depended upon her sagacious, loving direction.

From the top of the flight of stairs leading from the ground floor,
George, waiting till it was over, witnessed the departure of his family
for the afternoon promenade. A prodigious affair! The parlourmaid (a
delightful creature who was, unfortunately, soon to make an excellent
match above her station) amiably helped the nursemaid to get the
perambulator down the steps. The parlourmaid wore her immutable uniform,
and the nursemaid wore her immutable uniform. Various things had to be
packed into the perambulator, and then little Lois had to be packed into
it--not because she could not walk, but because it was not desirable for
her to arrive at the playground tired. Nursey's sunshade was
undiscoverable, and little Laurencine's little sunshade had to be
retrieved from underneath little Lois in the depths of the perambulator.
Nursey's book had fallen on the steps. Then the tiny but elaborate
perambulator of Laurencine's doll had to go down the steps, and the doll
had to be therein ensconced under Laurencine's own direction, and
Laurencine's sunshade had to be opened, and Laurencine had to prove to
the maids that she could hold the sunshade in one hand and push the
doll's perambulator with the other. Finally, the procession of human
beings and vehicles moved, munitioned, provisioned, like a caravan
setting forth into the desert, the parlourmaid amiably waving adieux.

George thought: "I support all that. It all depends on me. I have
brought it all into existence." And his reflections embraced Lois
upstairs, and the two colleagues of the parlourmaid in the kitchen, and
the endless apparatus of the house, and the people at his office and the
apparatus there, and the experiences that awaited him on the morrow, and
all his responsibilities, and all his