thed one such
outburst. The tedium of life, with no more to do in it--why couldn't it
end? The lights were out, the flowers were dead--and yet the unhappy
actors had to stay and stay and stay, idling on the empty, darkened
stage. (That was how Mrs. Hilary, with her gift for picturesque language,
put it.) _Must_ it be empty, _must_ it be dark, Neville uselessly asked,
knowing quite well that for one of her mother's temperament it must. Mrs.
Hilary had lived in and by her emotions; nothing else had counted. Life
for her had burnt itself out, and its remnant was like the fag end of a
cigarette, stale and old.

"Shall I feel like that in twenty years?" Neville speculated aloud.

"I hope," said Mrs. Hilary, "that you won't have lost Rodney. So long as
you have him...."

"But if I haven't...."

Neville looked down the years; saw herself without Rodney, perhaps
looking after her mother, who would then have become (strange, incredible
thought, but who could say?) calm with the calm of age; Kay and Gerda
married or working or both.... What then? Only she was better equipped
than her mother for the fag end of life; she had a serviceable brain and
a sound education. She wouldn't pass empty days at a seaside resort. She
would work at something, and be interested. Interesting work and
interesting friends--her mother, by her very nature, could have neither,
but was just clever enough to feel the want of them. The thing was to
start some definite work _now_, before it was too late.

"Did Grandmama go through it?" Neville asked her mother.

"Oh, I expect so. I was selfish; I was wrapped up in home and all of you;
I didn't notice. But I think she had it badly, for a time, when first she
left the vicarage.... She's contented now."

They both looked at Grandmama, who was playing patience on the sofa and
could not hear their talking for the sound of the sea. Yes, Grandmama was
(apparently) contented now.

"There's work," mused Neville, thinking of the various links with life,
the rafts, rather, which should carry age over the cold seas of tedious
regret. "And there's natural gaiety. And intellectual interests. And
contacts with other people--permanent contacts and temporary ones. And
beauty. All those things. For some people, too, there's religion."

"And for all of us food and drink," said Mrs. Hilary, sharply. "Oh,
I suppose you think I've no right to complain, as I've got all those
things, except work."

But Neville shook he