" said Lady Dashwood, pretending not to see the
change. "I don't pity her, though I suppose that she, too, is merely a
symptom of the times we live in." Here she began to pour out a dose from
the bottle in her hand. "It can't be a good thing, May, for the
community that there should be women who live to organise amusement for
themselves; who merely live to meet each other and their men folk, and
play about. It can't be good for the community? We ought all to work,
May, every one of us. Writing invitations to each other to come and
play, buying things for ourselves, seeing dressmakers isn't work. There,
May!" She held out the glass to May. Each kept up the
pretence--pretending with solemnity that May had been trembling because
she had possibly got a chill. It was a pretence that was necessary. It
was a pretence that covered and protected both of them. It was a brave
pretence. "No," said Lady Dashwood again, and firmly, as she released
the glass. "It isn't good for the community to have a class of busy
idlers at the top of the ladder."

May had taken the glass, and now she tipped it up and drank the
contents. They were hot and stinging!

Then May broke her silence, and imitating a voice that Lady Dashwood
knew well, uttered these words:

"Oh, damn the community!"

"Was it very nasty?" said Lady Dashwood, laughing. "Ah, May, I can laugh
now at Belinda! Alas! I can laugh!"

CHAPTER XXV

CONFESSIONS

What stung Gwendolen, what made her smart almost beyond endurance, was
that she had exchanged the Warden for an umbrella. The transaction had
been simple, and sudden, and inevitable. The Warden was in London, a
free man, and there was the umbrella in the corner of the room, hers. It
was looking at her, and she had not paid for it. The bill would be sent
to the Lodgings, the bill for the umbrella and the gloves. The bill
would be re-directed and would reach her--bills always did reach one,
however frequently one changed one's address. Private letters sometimes
got misdirected and mislaid, but never bills. Friends sometimes say, "We
couldn't write because we didn't know your address." Tradespeople never
say this, they don't omit to send their bills merely because they don't
know your address. If they don't know your address, they search for it!

The pure imbecility of her behaviour at Christ Church about that
ten-shilling note was now apparent to Gwendolen. She could not think,
now, how she could have done anythi