f, but I _don't_ like it.... You're different;
finer, more real, more unselfish. Besides, you'll have done something
worth doing when you have to give up. I shan't."

Pamela's brows went up.

"Kay? Gerda? The pretty dears: I've done nothing so nice as them. You've
done what's called a woman's work in the world--isn't that the phrase?"

"Done it--just so, but so long ago. What now? I still feel young, Pamela,
even now that I know I'm not. ... Oh Lord, it's a queer thing, being a
woman. A well-off woman of forty-three with everything made comfortable
for her and her brain gone to pot and her work in the world done. I want
something to bite my teeth into--some solid, permanent job--and I get
nothing but sweetmeats, and people point at Kay and Gerda and say 'That's
your work, and it's over. Now you can rest, seeing that it's good, like
God on the seventh day.'"

"_I_ don't say 'Now you can rest. Except just now, while you're run
down.'"

"Run down, yes; run down like a disordered clock because I tried to
tackle an honest job of work again. Isn't it sickening, Pamela? Isn't it
ludicrous?"

"Ludicrous--no. Everyone comes up against his own limitations. You've got
to work within them that's all. After all, there are plenty of jobs you
can do that want doing--simply shouting to be done."

"Pammie dear, it's worse than I've said. I'm a low creature. I don't only
want to do jobs that want doing: I want to count, to make a name. I'm
damnably ambitious. You'll despise that, of course--and you're quite
right, it is despicable. But there it is. Most men and many women are
tormented by it--they itch for recognition."

"Of course. One is."

"You too, Pammie?"

"I have been. Less now. Life gets to look short, when you're
thirty-nine."

"Ah, but you have it--recognition, even fame, in the world you work in.
You count for something. If you value it, there it is. I wouldn't grumble
if I'd played your part in the piece. It's a good part--a useful part
and a speaking part."

"I suppose we all feel we should rather like to play someone else's part
for a change. There's nothing exciting about mine. Most people would far
prefer yours."

They would, of course; Neville knew it. The happy political wife rather
than the unmarried woman worker; Rodney, Gerda and Kay for company rather
than Frances Carr. There was no question which was the happier lot, the
fuller, the richer, the easier, the more entertaining.

"Ah well.... You see