t too fast. She looked at the wet strands of
black hair now spread over her shoulders to dry in the sun, at her
strong, supple, active limbs, and thought of the days to come, when the
black hair should be grey and the supple limbs refuse to carry her up
beech trees, and when, if she bathed in the sunrise, she would get
rheumatism. In those days, what did one do to keep from sinking in the
black seas of regret? One sat by the fire, or in the sunlit garden, old
and grey and full of sleep--yes, one went to sleep, when one could. When
one couldn't, one read. But one's eyes got tired soon--Neville thought of
her grandmother--and one had to be read aloud to, by someone who couldn't
read aloud. That wouldn't be enough to stifle vain regrets; only
rejoicing actively in the body did that. So, before that time came, one
must have slain regret, crushed that serpent's head for good and all.

But did anyone ever succeed in doing this? Rodney, who had his full,
successful, useful, interesting life; Rodney, who had made his mark and
was making it; Rodney, the envy of many others, and particularly the envy
of Neville, with the jagged ends of her long since broken career stabbing
her; Rodney from time to time burned inwardly with scorching ambitions,
with jealousies of other men, with all the heats, rancours and troubles
of the race that is set before us. He had done, was doing, something, but
it wasn't enough. He had got, was getting, far,--but it wasn't far
enough. He couldn't achieve what he wanted; there were obstacles
everywhere. Fools hindered his work; men less capable than he got jobs he
should have had. Immersed in politics, he would have liked more time for
writing; he would have liked a hundred other careers besides his own, and
could have but the one. (Gerda and Kay, still poised on the threshold of
life, still believed that they could indeed have a hundred.) No, Rodney
was not immune from sorrow, but at least he had more with which to keep
it at bay than Neville. Neville had no personal achievements; she had
only her love for Rodney, Gerda and Kay, her interest in the queer,
enchanting pageant of life, her physical vigours (she could beat any of
the rest of them at swimming, walking, tennis or squash) and her active
but wasted brain. A good brain, too; she had easily and with brilliance
passed her medical examinations long ago--those of them for which she had
had time before she had been interrupted. But now a wasted brain;