ss Dexter, and said he thought that at moments she was
beautiful. Presently he remembered the tray that was coming, and saw
that the hour was half-past seven, and hurried away. She fancied that
she missed in his "Good-night" the sort of gentle affectionateness he
had shown her so freely of late.

She went up to her room to prepare for the meal he had disparaged so
much, looking tired. She smiled rather sadly when she had to own to
herself that the tray of supper was almost exactly what Edmund had
foretold. She dismissed it as soon as she could, and then drew a chair
up to the fire and took up a book. But it soon dropped on to her knee.
She had been trying not to give way to depression all that day. But it
was very difficult. There seemed to be so little object in life. She
felt as if everything had got into a fog; there was no one at home to
whom her going and coming mattered any more than the meals mattered.
And, meanwhile, she was being sucked into a world of committees and
sub-committees. She had thought that, as she could no longer give money,
she would give her time and her work; so, when asked, she had joined
many things just because she was asked, and she was a little hazy as to
the objects of some of them. Having been afraid that she would not have
enough to do, she found now that she had already more than she could
manage. And everything seemed so difficult. During the past week she had
twice taken the wrong bus, and come home very wet and tired. Another day
she had taken the wrong train when coming back from South London, and
had found herself at Baker Street instead of Sloane Square. These things
tried her beyond reason with the sense of loneliness, of incapacity, of
uncertainty. Then she had thought that, with very quiet black clothes,
she could go anywhere, but her mother had discovered that she sometimes
came back from the Girls' Club in Bermondsey as late as ten o'clock at
night, and there had been a fuss. Rose had forgotten the fact that she
was very fair and very good to look at; she found, half-consciously,
that her beauty had its drawbacks. There did not seem to be any reason
why she should spare her strength in any way. So, a little wan and
tremulous, she appeared at the early morning service, and then, after
walking back in any weather, there was a dull little breakfast, and soon
after that she got to work. Every post brought begging letters in
crowds, and these hurt her dreadfully. It was her wish t