g a sense
of uneasiness. He would have preferred that she had got on well at
Cailsham. He would rather that she had taken a fancy to Devenish.
But she was reasonable--extremely reasonable. He had nothing to
grumble at. Yet he could not get away from the sense of something
that made each word they said drag slowly, unnaturally into utterance.
He tried to shake it from him.

"Well, what is it you've got to speak to me about?" he asked in a
fresh tone of voice, as if with a jerk they were starting again over
lighter ground.

"Won't you wait till you've finished your tea?" she asked.

"I have finished."

"No more?"

"No, thanks. Do you mind my smoking?"

She lit a match for him in answer--held it out, waiting while he
extracted the cigarette from his case.

"Now tell me," he said, when she had thrown the match away.

She gazed for a moment in the grate, at the kettle breathing
contentedly on the gas stove.

"I'm lonely," she said, turning to his eyes.

He met her gaze as well as he could. He knew she was lonely.
Conscience--conscience that no strength of will could override--had
often pricked him on that point. But what was a conscience? He would
not have believed himself guilty of the weakness at any other time.
He gave no rein to it.

"But you'll get over that," he said. "You'll get over that."

"I don't think so."

"But why not? Perhaps you give way to it. Find yourself plenty to
do. Keep yourself moving. You won't be lonely then."

"I know. But do what?"

"Well," the question faced him. He had to answer it. "Well, you're
fond of reading, aren't you?"

"Reading!"

"And you've got these rooms to keep straight. A good many women if
they thought they'd got to tidy up two rooms every day would grumble
at the amount of labour, because it took up so much of their time."

"Yes; but they'd do it."

"Probably they'd have to."

"And then they wouldn't be lonely."

"Quite so. Isn't that what I say?"

"Yes; but don't you forget one thing?"

"What's that?"

"They'd be doing it for some one else. They wouldn't be doing it for
themselves. And don't you think they get the impetus to do it from
that?"

She leant forward--no sign of triumph in her face--and watched his
eyes. She knew he could not reply to that. He knew it too. He pulled
strenuously at his cigarette, then flung it into the empty fireplace.

"Then what is your point?" he asked firmly. He beat around no bushes.
That was not the nature of