eat gaps in her equipment of knowledge, which came from
ignoring at school those of her studies which had not seemed to her of
importance. She had firmly declined a University education; she had
decided that it was not a fruitful start in life, and was also afraid of
getting an academic mind. But at economic and social subjects, at drawing
and at writing, she worked without indolence, taking them earnestly,
still young enough to believe it important that she should attain
proficiency.

Neville, on the other hand, was indolent. For twenty-two years she had
pleased herself, done what she wanted when she wanted to, played the
flirt with life. And now she had become soft-willed. Now, sitting in
the garden with her books, like Gerda and Kay, she would find that the
volumes had slipped from her knee and that she was listening to the
birds in the elms. Or she would fling them aside and get up and stretch
herself, and stroll into the little wood beyond the garden, or down to
the river, or she would propose tennis, or go up to town for some meeting
or concert or to see someone, though she didn't really want to, having
quite enough of London during that part of the year when they lived
there. She only went up now because otherwise she would be working. At
this rate she would never be ready to resume her medical course in the
autumn.

"I will attend. I will. I will," she whispered to herself, a hand pressed
to each temple to constrain her mind. And for five minutes she would
attend, and then she would drift away on a sea of pleasant indolence,
and time fluttered away from her like an escaping bird, and she knew
herself for a light woman who would never excel. And Kay's brown head
was bent over his book, and raised sometimes to chaff or talk, and bent
over his books again, the thread of his attention unbroken by his easy
interruptions. And Gerda's golden head lay pillowed in her two clasped
hands, and she stared up at the blue through the green and did nothing
at all, for that was often Gerda's unashamed way.

Often Rodney sat in the garden too and worked. And his work Neville felt
that she too could have done; it was work needing initiative and creative
thought, work suitable to his forty-five years, not cramming in knowledge
from books. Neville at times thought that she too would stand for
parliament one day. A foolish, childish game it was, and probably really
therefore more in her line than solid work.

3

Nan came down