mind forcing her to say the things
that one usually does not say. "But I don't believe in God, I don't
believe in Mr. Bax, I don't believe in the hospital nurse. I don't
believe--" She took up a photograph and, looking at it, did not finish
her sentence.

"That's my mother," said Evelyn, who remained sitting on the floor
binding her knees together with her arms, and watching Rachel curiously.

Rachel considered the portrait. "Well, I don't much believe in her," she
remarked after a time in a low tone of voice.

Mrs. Murgatroyd looked indeed as if the life had been crushed out of
her; she knelt on a chair, gazing piteously from behind the body of a
Pomeranian dog which she clasped to her cheek, as if for protection.

"And that's my dad," said Evelyn, for there were two photographs in one
frame. The second photograph represented a handsome soldier with high
regular features and a heavy black moustache; his hand rested on the
hilt of his sword; there was a decided likeness between him and Evelyn.

"And it's because of them," said Evelyn, "that I'm going to help the
other women. You've heard about me, I suppose? They weren't married, you
see; I'm not anybody in particular. I'm not a bit ashamed of it. They
loved each other anyhow, and that's more than most people can say of
their parents."

Rachel sat down on the bed, with the two pictures in her hands, and
compared them--the man and the woman who had, so Evelyn said, loved
each other. That fact interested her more than the campaign on behalf of
unfortunate women which Evelyn was once more beginning to describe. She
looked again from one to the other.

"What d'you think it's like," she asked, as Evelyn paused for a minute,
"being in love?"

"Have you never been in love?" Evelyn asked. "Oh no--one's only got to
look at you to see that," she added. She considered. "I really was in
love once," she said. She fell into reflection, her eyes losing
their bright vitality and approaching something like an expression of
tenderness. "It was heavenly!--while it lasted. The worst of it is it
don't last, not with me. That's the bother."

She went on to consider the difficulty with Alfred and Sinclair about
which she had pretended to ask Rachel's advice. But she did not want
advice; she wanted intimacy. When she looked at Rachel, who was still
looking at the photographs on the bed, she could not help seeing that
Rachel was not thinking about her. What was she thinking about, the