of tennis before
dinner in peace.

There would be no peace if Louie and Edie wanted to play too. The one
thing that Anthony could not stand was people wanting to do things they
couldn't do, and spoiling them for those who could. He used to say that
the sight of Louie anywhere near the tennis court put him off
his stroke.

Again, the faint illusion of worry was created by the thought that this
dreadful thing might happen, that Louie and Edie might want to play and
that Anthony would be put off his stroke and be annoyed, and that his
annoyance, his just and legitimate annoyance, would spoil the
perfection of the afternoon. And as she played with the illusion it made
more real her tranquillity, her incredible content.

Her hands were busy now putting decorative stitches into a frock for
John. She had pushed aside a novel by George Moore and a volume of
Ibsen's plays. She disliked Ibsen and disapproved of George Moore. Her
firm, tight little character defended itself against every form of
intellectual disturbance. A copy of the _Times_ had fallen from her lap
to her feet. Jane, the cat, had found it there, and, purring loudly, had
trodden it down into a bed, and now lay on it, asleep. Frances had
informed herself of the affairs of the nation.

At the bottom of her mind was the conviction (profound, because
unconscious) that the affairs of the nation were not to be compared for
interest with her own affairs, and an attitude of condescension, as if
she honoured the _Times_ by reading it and the nation by informing
herself of its affairs; also the very distinct impression that evening
papers were more attractive than morning papers. She would have admitted
that they owed their attraction to the circumstance that Anthony brought
them home with him in his pocket, and that in the evening she was not
obliged to inform herself of what might be happening. Anthony was
certain to inform her.

Not that anything ever did happen. Except strikes; and even then, no
sooner did the features of the strike begin to get dramatic than they
were instantly submerged in the flood of conversation that was let loose
over them. Mrs. Anthony pitied the poor editors and reporters while
Parliament was sitting. She saw them as rather silly, violent and
desperate men, yet pathetic in their silliness, violence and
desperation, snatching at divorces, and breach of promise cases, and
fires in paraffin shops, as drowning men snatch at straws.

Her imag