ew that much, but she ought not to speak like that. He
felt he ought to reprove her, but the difficulty of finding words
stopped him.

'Have you made any plans?' he asked in his embarrassment, thus
blundering into the subject he had intended to lead up to with infinite
tact.

'Plans?' said Victoria. 'Well, not exactly. Of course I shall have to
work; I thought you might help me perhaps.'

Edward looked at her again uneasily. She had sat down in an armchair by
the side of the fire with her back to the light. In the penumbra her
eyes came out like dark pools. A curl rippled over one of her ears. She
looked so self-possessed that his embarrassment increased.

'Will you have to work?' he asked. The idea of his sister working filled
him with vague annoyance.

'I don't quite see how I can help it,' said Victoria smiling. 'You see,
I've got nothing, absolutely nothing. When I've spent the thirty pounds
or so I've got, I must either earn my own living or go into the
workhouse.' She spoke lightly, but she was conscious of a peculiar
sinking.

'I thought you might come back with me,' said Edward, '. . . and stay
with me a little . . . and look round.'

'Ted, it's awfully kind of you, but I'm not going to let you saddle
yourself with me. I can't be your housekeeper; oh! it would never do.
And don't you think I am more likely to get something to do here than
down in Bedfordshire?'

'I do want you to come back with me,' said Edward hesitatingly. 'I don't
think you ought to be alone here. And perhaps I could find you something
in a family at Cray or thereabouts. I could ask the vicar.'

Victoria shuddered. It had never struck her that employment might be
difficult to find or uncongenial when one found it. The words 'vicar'
and 'Cray' suggested something like domestic service without its rights,
gentility without its privileges.

'Ted,' she said gravely, 'you're awfully good to me, but I'd rather stay
here. I'm sure I could find something to do.' Edward's thoughts
naturally came back to his own profession.

'I'll ask the Head,' he said with the first flash of animation he had
shown since he entered the room. To ask the Head was to go to the source
of all knowledge. 'Perhaps he knows a school. Of course your French is
pretty good, isn't it?'

'Ted, Ted, you do forget things,' said Victoria, laughing. 'Don't you
remember the mater insisting on my taking German because so few girls
did? Why, it was the only original thing