SIX MRS GREENES

MRS. GREENE

I

Old Mrs. Greene was very tired.

When she was tired she talked to herself, and her talk was a jumble of names. Her sons, her grandsons, her granddaughter, her granddaughter's husband, jigged about in her brain. They formed groups, advanced towards her in a solid phalanx, broke up and receded again. The pattern of their comings and goings was shot with pleasure at some remembered incident, or again with intense irritation that found vent in mumbled phrases. "She's always been a stupid woman."

"What did you say, Mrs. Greene?" asked Miss Dorset, a quiet, pleasant young woman who acted as her housekeeper and companion.

"I didn't," said Mrs. Greene, annoyed at being interrupted in that restless uncontrollable reverie which was all that remained to her of thought, but the innumerable little lines on her old cheeks smoothed into tranquillity as a sudden recollection of her granddaughter's last visit established itself momentarily in her mind. Lavinia had been very sweet and so pretty. That scarlet frock had seemed to darken her eyes and whiten her skin; even her hair shone as she sat on a footstool after dinner in front of the fire, her hands clasped round her knees, and talked about Martin endlessly, glowingly; about the two Martins, her husband and her son. A happy child Lavinia; Martin, a satisfactory grandson-in-law, and Martin, the little great-grandson, a pleasant thing to think about. Why was it that Lavinia's husband had not been able to come for the week-end with Lavinia? Mrs. Greene groped in her mind for the reason and then stumbled on it suddenly as one of the things Lavinia had spoken about with pride. Martin had been asked to go North to represent the firm on business. He had to interview two clients and persuade them to carry through an important deal, and it was a matter for congratulation that the negotiations had been entrusted to him.

Old Mrs. Greene pondered. The beginnings of life, how terrible they were; each action, even the most impulsive and ill-considered, marching steadily on towards its inevitable result, and eliminating logically the possibility of any other result.

For a moment, looking back, she saw her life move down its long determined track, marked erratically here and there by emotions, incidents and circumstances: her passionate love for Geoffrey, her husband; her passionate maternal love for Rodney and Edwin; the death of her father; her sons' marriages; her husband's sudden and widespread literary recognition; Edwin's death, and then her husband's death followed immediately by the birth of Lavinia's son, her only great-grandchild. She looked down at her thin old hands with the loose rings slipping up the fingers, and thought with clear lucidity: what changes are wrought by the alchemy of years in this poor human stuff.

Immediately her age, her weariness, her thousand bodily discomforts, crowded into the present and engulfed the past.

"Miss Dorset," she said querulously, "help me to bed, Miss Dorset, I'm tired."

II

When a hen's life is ended by the chopper the severed head falls to the ground, but the body with spattered wings awkwardly outstretched steps erratically this way and that, watched from the ground by its own surprised eyes until its ultimate surrender to the laws of death and gravity.

Miss Dorset fifteen years ago had suffered and lived through a kindred mutilation, being forced to watch from the edge of a cliff her twin sister and only relative drowning a hundred yards from the shore. Mary Dorset had gone bathing, Clara Dorset had gone walking. Mary took cramp, struggled a little, and sank, while Clara on the top of the cliff darted a few steps to the right, a few to the left, screaming, and finally fell to the ground, overborne by the shocking realisation of her loss and of her utter impotence to have prevented it.

Since then Miss Dorset, always competent, always adequate, had been curiously incomplete. Anæsthetized by this early tragedy she was invulnerable to further suffering, impervious to the pinpricks of poverty and dependence, and utterly unmoved in the face of any difficulty or crisis. Sometimes at night between waking and sleeping, or in the early morning between sleeping and waking, she was stabbed by a poignant vision of that scene of fifteen years ago, but no trace of emotion showed, as a rule, in her quiet manner of life.

She had lived with Mrs. Greene for seven years, at first as housekeeper and secretary. Since Mr. Greene's death, however, which had occurred suddenly three years ago, her role had been much more comprehensive. She managed the household, prepared for visitors, welcoming them unobtrusively on their arrival, and discreetly beckoning one guest out as she shepherded another in, lest the fatigue of prolonged conversation should lead to a restless night for the old lady. But she was also Mrs. Greene's constant companion, on her walks, in the house and at meals; there were indeed few moments in the day when she could contrive to be alone.

The measured routine of life was rarely broken in its succession of small daily services and arrangements, but when any of the grandchildren came for a visit Miss Dorset showed a natural grace not only in her methods of self-effacement but in leaving undone those trivial duties which, carried out by Geoffrey, Lavinia or Hugh, became a source of pleasure to Mrs. Greene. "Give me a cushion, Geoffrey, and arrange my shawl," she would say; and when Geoffrey had fumbled the cushion into place Miss Dorset, fully conscious of the fact that he had not added to Mrs. Greene's comfort, nevertheless appreciated the pleasure that it had given her to be waited on by her grandson.

There was a genuinely comfortable relationship between Mrs. Greene and Miss Dorset: Mrs. Greene seldom resented the fact of her physical dependence on Miss Dorset, and Miss Dorset understood, too well to be wounded by any sharpness of tongue, the old woman's kindliness, sagacity and clear sightedness.

At 9.15 every morning Miss Dorset brought up the letters, and waited quietly by the bedside, watching the unsteady fingers tearing open the envelopes and slowly withdrawing the rustling sheets. It would have been easy to offer help, but Miss Dorset was infinitely patient. "Mrs. Greene likes to do little things for herself," she would explain. "It takes a few moments longer, but she has a great deal of leisure, you know." And Helen—it was generally Helen who expostulated at delay, and was ready with her facile, "Let me do it, Granny,"—must needs restrain herself and watch the number of laborious trembling movements that were necessary to perform any simple action.

This morning Miss Dorset remembering Mrs. Greene's extreme fatigue on the previous night, looked anxiously at her face as she took the letters, but made no comment. Mrs. Greene, however, answered the unspoken question, "I had a good night, thank you, and I'm not tired to-day."

She laid a hand on Miss Dorset's arm and added: "You're a nice restful creature to have about."

A deep, unbecoming flush spread over Miss Dorset's sallowness at the unusual tribute, but she only said quietly: "Thank you, I'm very happy here with you," and then waited with folded hands for any news or instructions to be imparted to her.

It was a long time before Mrs. Greene leaned back on her pillow and allowed a neat and closely written letter to slip from her fingers on to the bed. She was worrying. A thousand tiny lines creased her forehead, and she pushed back her scanty white hair with a gesture reminiscent of the days when heavy dark wings smooth and shining like Lavinia's, had swept down from her middle parting to cover the ears that now jutted out like excrescences on her shrunken skull.

"It's not a good idea," she said with an unusual tremor in her voice. "It's a sentimental idea and the children don't hold with sentiment and anniversaries and such like, and it will be very difficult for me. In fact if Edith weren't so set on it, I wouldn't think of going, but you know how my daughter-in-law must always have her way."

"Is it a letter from Mrs. Rodney that is worrying you?" asked Miss Dorset.

"I told you it was," answered Mrs. Greene. "Here, you'd better read it."

She picked up the letter and handed it to Miss Dorset.

207, Sussex Square.
        Nov. 9th.

My dear Mrs. Greene,

Rodney and I were delighted to hear from Lavinia that you were so well and in such good spirits when she saw you at the weekend. We have been hoping to come and see you for the last few weeks, but Rodney has been very busy, and I have had a great deal on my hands since the wedding. I've been supervising Hugh's and Jessica's house being got ready for them among other things. They come home on Tuesday evidently very happy, and quite sure that no couple ever had a honeymoon like theirs. I have a little plan for them which I do hope you will try and fall in with, as it will be no good at all without you. Aunt Sarah is to be in town next week I hear, staying with her own relations, and I think it would be such a good idea if you would come up for one night for a little dinner party. Just the family of course.

Do you realise that there are now six Mrs. Greenes? You and Aunt Sarah, Dora and myself, and the two children, Helen and Jessica. I think Friday week would be best. Rodney will come himself to fetch you in the car, and you can have a long rest before dinner, and motor home on Saturday. Now don't say no, I have really set my heart on having a reunion of the three generations.

Rodney sends his love and is hoping to see you.

Much love from
        EDITH.

Miss Dorset read this through carefully, reflected for a moment and then said decisively: "I don't think it would be wise for you to go, Mrs. Greene; you've been very easily tired the last few weeks, and this time of year is trying. Will you not dictate a letter for Mrs. Rodney saying you don't feel able to accept her invitation?"

"I don't call that an invitation," said Mrs. Greene forcibly. "More like a command. My daughter-in-law arranges everything for everybody and sends them their instructions."

Her voice lost its vibration and dropped on a flat note as she added: "It's easier to fall in with her plans, than to hold out against them; I'm getting old. And perhaps it will please Rodney to have me in his house again, though it's more hers than his."

A long silence fell. Miss Dorset had no comment to offer and Mrs. Greene was obviously immersed in painful thoughts. Suddenly she roused herself and leaned forward, speaking with such calmness and certainty that her words borrowed the force of oratory.

"When a woman has lived with her husband and loved her husband for over fifty years, she shouldn't live on after him. She's only a cripple. There's no place left for her, and no power. I saw one of my sons marry a girl I didn't like, and the other a girl I despised. I lost Edwin in the War, and Edwin's son soon after. Geoffrey and I were old; we were on the shelf, but we still had our place in life. Now Geoffrey's dead and I'm lost. I'm Granny and Greatgranny; I'm an old woman to be humoured and treated kindly and encouraged and taken here and there for her own good, but I'm not Mrs. Geoffrey Greene. She's dead."

Mrs. Greene had spoken with long pauses between the sentences. When she had finished she closed her eyes and sat upright and motionless, drained of colour, teeth and hair assailed by the greedy years, but with the lovely structure of jaw and cheekbone more visible under the sagging skin than it had ever been under firm flesh.

"I don't think you should let Mrs. Rodney's letter depress you," hazarded Miss Dorset at last. "If you decide to go I know both she and Mr. Rodney will make all arrangements for your comfort."

"Everybody makes arrangements for my comfort," said Mrs. Greene harshly. "And nobody can achieve it for me."

She spoke with her eyes still shut, and there was bitter resignation in the line of her mouth.

"We do try," ventured Miss Dorset gently. At the sound of her troubled voice Mrs. Greene lifted her lids and smiled.

"I know you do," she said, and her voice had regained its ring. "I'm an ungrateful, cantankerous old woman, and I may last like this for years."

The crudity of the last sentence was the signal for Miss Dorset to change the subject.

"Would you like to get up now?" she asked. "You have a nice full day before you: it's so sunny this morning that I think a little walk will do you good, and then you remember Mrs. Hugh is coming for to-night on her way up to town. She arrives at 4.15, and I've ordered the car to meet her."

"I'd forgotten Sarah was coming to-day," said Mrs. Greene. "I'll be glad to see her. I wonder if she has heard from Edith; she'll be no more pleased than I am about this ridiculous party."

All her good humour came back at the malicious and delightful thought of imparting the unwelcome news to her sister-in-law and discussing with her the unreasonableness of such a plan.

"Sarah will see that it's a bad idea," she repeated confidently. "There'll we be, three widows and three wives, each of us supposed to stand for something, and the whole idea quite false. I'm not an old Greene grandmother any more than Edith is a Greene mother and Jessica a young Greene wife; I'm Margaret Hill, and Jessica is Jessica Deane, and we married men of the same name and the same blood, but nobody but Edith would ever expect that to link us up in a chain."

"I know you will enjoy a talk with Mrs. Hugh," said Miss Dorset. "Shall I put her in the usual room, or do you think she likes the view from the front better? It isn't such a good room, of course."

"Put her in the front room. Sarah is like me; she likes to look out on a good view and a wide space, and so long as the bed is comfortable she won't notice anything else. And now help me up, please."

The business of getting Mrs. Greene dressed for the day was exhausting both for her and for Miss Dorset, but there were few days in the year when her indomitable courage and vitality allowed her to lie abed and forgo the effort for twenty-four hours. The irritation involved in thrusting out each leg to have its stocking drawn on was so intense as to amount to pain; her back ached and her skin tingled. It was infinite weariness to get her arms into her sleeves and keep her head steady to have her hair done, but Mrs. Greene faced these ordeals with fortitude and equanimity.

Every morning the indignity of physical helplessness struck her afresh, but every morning she banished the thought with resolution and ignored in conversation the difficulties of her toilet. Her good humour never failed her here, and Miss Dorset was too well versed in the intricacies of her employer's code of reticence ever to provoke her by an allusion to the matter in hand.

Usually during that painful three quarters of an hour they discussed the news of the day which both had absorbed during breakfast, Mrs. Greene with genuine interest in current activities, Miss Dorset uninterested, except in so far as they provided a topic of discussion attractive to Mrs. Greene. Mrs. Rodney's letter, however, altered the trend of Mrs. Greene's conversation for this one morning.

"What dress have I got to wear at my daughter-in-law's dinner?" she asked crisply. "I won't wear black and I think my grey satin is getting shabby."

"I think perhaps it is a little," agreed Miss Dorset. "But it always looks very nice."

"Shabby and nice don't go together," was the uncompromising reply. "We'll write to Madame Fenella to-day and ask her to send down a fitter with some patterns of grey satin and brocade. I'll wear my diamond necklace, and grey is a good background. You know, Miss Dorset, I've always liked nice dresses."

"I know you have, Mrs. Greene; all your things have been beautiful as long as I've known you."

"But it was before you knew me that I had my best things," said Mrs. Greene staring into the mirror, but not seeing the face ragged with age reflected in it. Seeing herself instead forty, fifty and sixty years ago when she was ardent and lovely.

"There was a sea-green poplin," she said dreamily. "A silk poplin that Geoffrey liked very much. That was the summer when Edwin was ten; I remember going up in it to kiss him good-night. And before that there was a blue velvet, peacock blue we called it, with a tight bodice and a flounced skirt all drawn to the back. But when I was a girl, before I married, it was always white. I remember asking my mother for a red evening dress but she wouldn't hear of it, so I didn't get one till long after I married—and then it didn't suit me."

Mrs. Greene smiled, thinking of the red dress that had been a failure, and then went on musingly:

"I don't know why it didn't suit me; Lavinia is very like what I was at her age, and she looks so pretty in red; but Godfrey liked me best in green and blue, and I used to dress to please him."

"I think you always look very nice in grey, and of course, as you say, it's a lovely background for your jewels," said Miss Dorset, whose sole conversational aim was to direct Mrs. Greene down pleasant paths and by-ways and prevent if possible any comparison between the empty present and the rich past.

On this occasion she was fortunate. An expression of real pleasure lit up Mrs. Greene's faded eyes. She spoke with assurance.

"You know, Miss Dorset, it's a long time since I wore my diamond necklace; in fact it's a long time since I went over my jewels at all. I think with the party coming off I'd really better look through them."

"I'm sure it would be a good plan," agreed Miss Dorset.

"Very well then, we'll go out now; I'm ready am I not? And this afternoon you'll open the safe and I'll go over all my things. Geoffrey did love to give me jewels. You know I used to be very dark, and he always thought them very becoming to me."

"You'll be quite busy then," said Miss Dorset, relieved to think that the day promised to be a full and interesting one for Mrs. Greene; for once in a way there was a definite little plan for each of the yawning intervals between meals.

To Miss Dorset each day presented itself as a problem in four sections: in each section some trivial interest or occupation had to be provided for old Mrs. Greene, whose mental outlook, through still vivid, could not avoid being impinged upon by her physical limitations. There was the long interval between getting dressed and lunch time which could only be comfortably filled by a walk. Miss Dorset registered an aggrieved resentment against Providence for any lapse from fine weather conditions between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Subconsciously she felt that it was Mrs. Greene's prerogative to enjoy the sun for these two hours.

The shorter interval between lunch and tea was partially filled by a rest, and often by preparations for some visitor who was coming to tea, and whose visit involved for her punctilious hostess a change of dress and shawl.

The hour after tea was often a difficult and irritable time, particularly in winter when the heavy curtains had to be drawn early and Mrs. Greene could not sit at her drawing-room window, gazing over the fields to the little larch wood that darkened and thickened as light faded out of the sky, and then magically thinned again till each twig was separate and visible in the clear darkness.

Sometimes there was a library list to be made, or a parcel of library books to be opened, and to Miss Dorset at least, it was a matter of signal importance that the second post arrived at 5 o'clock. It might contain letters that would keep Mrs. Greene occupied for half an hour.

There was always Patience, of course, but there were few days when this proved to be anything but a dreary makeshift. Mrs. Greene would lay out the cards, idly pick up the kings and queens, turn them about as if the designs were new to her and forget what Patience she had embarked on. Even Miss Dorset's nervous system was not proof against the strain of watching her try to play "Monte Carlo" with cards arranged for "Demon."

After dinner was a blessedly short period, and generally a happy one.

Summer and winter alike Mrs. Greene would come through from the dining-room in a mood of tranquil acquiescence; content either to dream by the open window with the scent of stocks from the flower beds and hay from the meadows beyond, blowing in on the cool night breeze, or else to sit in front of the fire gazing at the glowing logs which helped her to focus her mind and recapture elusive memories.

On this November day each section had provided its own solution.

"I think perhaps you should put on something warm," said Miss Dorset, avoiding instinctively any suggestion that she was dictator rather than adviser in the matter of wraps. "It's a lovely sunny day but there's a cold wind blowing round the corner of the house."

She arranged Mrs. Greene's heavy cape as she spoke, and then gently took her arm as they began the laborious descent of the stairs.

This safely accomplished and the old lady deposited for a moment on a chair in the hall, Miss Dorset hurried off to fetch her own coat.

"There now, we're all ready," she stated cheerfully on her return. "Will you have your walking-stick?"

She handed it to Mrs. Greene and they set off, walking slowly towards the walled garden, where clumps of tattered Michaelmas daisies, some limp and shabby chrysanthemums, and a few stalwart dahlias still defied the coming winter.

A sudden jocose gust of wind swept the leaves along the untidy earthen borders, whirled under Mrs. Greene's cape, and set all the branches rustling and all the tree tops tossing madly.

"You're sure this isn't too much for you?" asked Miss Dorset anxiously.

Everything was in motion; trees, bushes, and tatterdemalion flower heads. Even the earth seemed to move under the restless scattering leaves.

"I like it," she announced stoutly, and breathed deep of the rich odour of decay that rose like a miasma from the ground. "I like autumn; it's the time for adventures and fine deeds; it's the bravest season of all."

"That's quite true; I should like to die in the autumn."

Miss Dorset's answer was as totally unexpected as was the intensity with which she spoke. Mrs. Greene looked at her for a moment.

"You're still young," she said. "Death isn't the only adventure left for you as it is for me. You ought to like spring best, when the celandines come out."

Miss Dorset relapsed into her usual quiet apologetic manner, so strangely at variance with the uncompromising ferocity of her sentiments.

"Spring always seems to me a little silly," she asserted. "It's all so hopeful and promising, and hope and promise are such callow things and fall so soon in ruins."

Suddenly realising that she had broken one of her inviolable rules in betraying so intimate a glimpse of her personality, Miss Dorset hastily turned into a less personal channel.

"I think the word 'jejune' expresses what I feel about spring, but, as you say, the autumn is a fine season, and to-day is really beautiful."

Mrs. Greene held her peace. She had always possessed too much sensibility to frustrate anyone's means of escape from a conversational predicament. She had never pressed for a confidence. But as they walked down the path and out at the further gate from garden to wood it struck her as strange that there should be this kinship of thought between Miss Dorset and her.

The inequalities of life are very marked, she thought. Most of us arrive at the same conclusion, but the ways in which we reach it are as many as the leaves scuttling at my feet. I lived for seventy-five good years, then Geoffrey died and the lean years came. All that was left was to do the best I could from day to day, trying to be a little stoical, and not getting too whining and senile. But here's this poor dried-up creature. She never had a spring time and yet she lives like me from day to day getting a little pleasure here and a little comfort there, but really only living towards the grave.

Her heart stirred with pity as she thought of the glowing human relationships that had been her happiness and delight for seventy-five years, contrasted with the absolute emptiness of Miss Dorset's thirty-eight years.

"The trouble is I've lived too long; three years too long; but she's never lived at all."

Inadvertently she spoke aloud, but Miss Dorset was quite unaware of the trend of thought that had led to the remark.

"I beg your pardon," she said mechanically, more as a warning to her employer that she was thinking aloud, than in expectation of a reply.

Mrs. Greene, however, answered abruptly:

"There's a ruby and diamond brooch in the safe that I'm going to give you when we go through my things this afternoon. I meant to leave it to you anyhow, but you might as well have it now. I'd like to see you wearing it."

She hardly heard Miss Dorset's surprised and nervous thanks. She was again lost in thought, appreciating with painful clearness her motive in making this impulsive gesture. Life had given nothing to Clara Dorset, so she, Margaret Greene, was giving her a diamond and ruby brooch. It seemed somehow inadequate; Mrs. Greene smiled at the thought of how inadequate it was, but she sighed sharply at the tragic futility of all human endeavours to compensate, to strike a balance between loss and gain.

The day had changed for her. The fitful kindly wind was no longer kindly. It tugged at her hat and made her bones ache cruelly. The white clouds blowing across the sky seemed harbingers of rain, threatening to overcast the sun. She felt frail and impotent, and when she said, "I should like to turn back now," there was a quaver in her voice that she tried in vain to conceal.

As they retraced their slow steps Miss Dorset recited in detail her preparations for Mrs. Hugh's arrival.

"I've put two big vases of leaves in her bedroom," she said. "There really aren't any flowers left worth picking and the leaves are a beautiful colour."

"Sarah's garden at Lynton will be full of flowers. They bloom for her all the year round, but I'm no gardener."

Mrs. Greene was regaining her serenity.

"What are we giving her for dinner?" she asked. "Sarah pays no attention to what she eats, but I'd like to give her such a good dinner that she'll be bound to notice it."

"Well, I had thought of a good clear soup, some stuffed fillets of sole, a pheasant, and a nice apricot cream," said Miss Dorset tentatively, "but that can easily be changed if you would like something more elaborate."

"I don't like elaborate things," answered Mrs. Greene, "but Sarah never thinks of anything so mundane as food and it's good for her to meet a materialist like me."

She reflected for a moment and then pronounced decisively.

"Yes, that's a good dinner. But not apricot cream. Tell cook to make a peach tart with our own bottled peaches, and to give us a good hot savoury after it, and tell her to put enough sherry in the soup. I don't know why, but when there's no man to cook for, they won't put sherry in the soup or rum in the trifles."

Mrs. Greene spoke energetically. Careless herself as to what she ate, she had always held it important not only that her glass and silver should be beyond reproach, but that the food served to guests should be delicately chosen and delicately cooked.

"There's a lot to be learnt from food," she continued in a ruminating vein. "Take Sarah, for instance. After a dinner at Lynton you can't help knowing she's a good gardener because of her fruit and vegetables, but you can't help seeing she isn't discriminating; she gives you nourishment without quality. And think of Edith. Every meal I've eaten in that house has stamped her afresh as a practical, unimaginative, uninteresting woman."

"I hadn't really thought of it, but I'm sure there's a lot in what you say," agreed Miss Dorset. "Here we are back again. Shall we go in now or would you like another little turn?"

"I would not," Mrs. Greene replied crisply. "I'll go in and warm myself till lunch time; this wind chills my bones."

The warm atmosphere of the house after the tang of the fresh November air brought a gentle consciousness of fatigue that did not dissipate during lunch time, and Mrs. Greene was not reluctant to go upstairs for her afternoon rest.

Sometimes the indignity of returning to the habits of childhood struck deep into her soul; occasionally she indulged in a rare petulance, but generally she accepted philosophically the restrictions of her narrow life.

"You understand what I want you to do, don't you?" she asked Miss Dorset on the way up to her room. "Open the safe, and get out all the leather cases, and take down my jewel case from my bedroom and put everything ready for me in the library."

"Very well, I'll see to that," answered Miss Dorset; and with the anticipation of a pleasant task to be performed when she awoke, Mrs. Greene fell asleep.

III

When the time came to waken Mrs. Greene lest a prolonged sleep should spoil her night's rest, Miss Dorset experienced a tremor of the heart looking at the old face on the pillow.

She perceived more clearly than anyone the ravages wrought by the three years since Geoffrey Greene's death in the body that encased Margaret Greene's ardent but flickering vitality.

Sometimes it was impossible to believe that Mrs. Greene was only sleeping; her face seemed too old, too small, too hollow of cheek and temple, ever to waken to a semblance of life. These stiff brittle-looking eyelids could surely never lift again, the body outstretched under the eiderdown in a rigid and comfortless abandon could never reassemble itself into the familiar contours of trunk and limbs. Miss Dorset endured a moment's prevision of the inevitable day when she would touch a hand and find it cold; every day she flinched at the thought, but every day she marshalled her resources and bent down to Mrs. Greene with the invariable remark:

"I think perhaps you would like to waken now, and get up."

Mrs. Greene wakened slowly and with difficulty. Her first consciousness was of the past. She wakened in the period of her early marriage when her children were young—often with their names on her lips—and she would look vacantly at Miss Dorset for a few moments while her brain went roaming down the long years past the familiar landmarks of marriages, births and deaths, till it fetched up at last with a consciousness of her present situation, recognition of Miss Dorset, and with a final detailed knowledge of the month, the day, and her immediate plans.

Even so, for a little while her conversation was disjointed; she referred to her grandchildren by her children's names, and it seemed a cruelty to expect her to re-assume the burden of rational thought.

To-day the struggle was not so prolonged as usual.

"Yes, I would like to get up now," she said, still lying motionless but collecting her forces for the effort. "Edith will be here soon and I mustn't be late for tea."

"It's Mrs. Hugh who is coming, not Mrs. Rodney," Miss Dorset corrected gently.

"Yes, yes, I know it is; that's what I said," replied Mrs. Greene testily. "Get me up now. I'll put on my good blue dress and the shawl Lavinia gave me."

Changing in the afternoon was a much simpler matter than dressing in the morning. Some of the troubled vagueness and docility of interrupted sleep still hung about Mrs. Greene, and she hardly noticed that her body was being turned this way and that, her hair brushed, and her frock fastened.

"Everything is ready for you if you still feel you would like to go over your jewels," suggested Miss Dorset on the way downstairs.

"Of course I would; I hadn't forgotten," snapped Mrs. Greene, whose irritability proclaimed clearly that she had forgotten.

Miss Dorset opened the library door and disclosed the thin November sunlight streaming over the open cases laid out on the table, setting the diamonds a-glitter and shining into the heart of rubies and sapphires.

Mrs. Greene stopped in the doorway and drew a quick breath of pleasure.

"They look very fine," she said excitedly, "I didn't know I had so much. Of course there are some of my mother's jewels there, as well as Geoffrey's mother's, and all the things he gave me."

She moved over to the table and sat down, lifting up her diamond necklace and pendant to pore over its intricate but austere design.

"Isn't this beautiful?" she asked, not waiting for an answer. "Geoffrey gave it me after his first very successful book. We took a house in the country so that he could be free to finish it without interruptions, and he wrote all the summer. It was a lovely summer too, although Edwin's engagement in the autumn upset us all rather. We didn't think it very wise. However, Mr. Greene got his book finished, and it came out in November and was very successful indeed, and this is what he gave me the Christmas after. I remember thinking it was terribly extravagant of him, but of course I didn't know then that his book would go so well in America."

"It is a wonderful necklace," said Miss Dorset, holding it up to the sunlight.

"Well, that's not the way to look at it. Put it against a piece of dark stuff if you want to see it properly."

She drew a pair of slender emerald ear-rings towards her.

"These would do nicely for Lavinia some day," she began, but broke off and picked up a little gold ring set with an insignificant sapphire.

"Miss Dorset, look at this," she exclaimed. "That's what Geoffrey gave me after his very first book was published."

She looked at it reminiscently, not hearing Miss Dorset's comment of "Indeed, how very interesting."

"It was not long after we were married," she said presently. "We married young, you know, and old Mr. Greene was very angry with Geoffrey for making writing his career. He had been in his father's engineering works first of all and then found he was too unhappy to go on with it. I was engaged to him then and I encouraged him to go on with his writing. I said I'd marry him as soon as he liked and not mind about being poor, but he wasn't to start on a career he didn't care for. So I went to Papa and said I was going to marry Geoffrey at once and would do it more happily if I had his permission."

Mrs. Greene laughed her quiet infrequent laugh as she added contentedly:

"I was a bold young thing, you know. In those days it was a different matter to beard your father. But I didn't care for anything but Geoffrey, and Papa behaved very nicely to me. He gave me this as one of my wedding presents."

She groped among the cases, opened one, and displayed an old-fashioned round brooch consisting of a large amethyst surrounded by pearls in an elaborate gold setting.

"It looks clumsy now," she said, touching it with kindly fingers. "But round brooches were all the fashion then and I was very pleased with it. Mamma was very angry about my marriage, but then she was a very narrow woman; she never moved with the times."

Miss Dorset enjoyed a momentary flash of insight. She perceived that the old lady sitting beside her, herself a great-grandmother, was speaking of her mother, whose memory would normally be blurred by the clouds of half a century, in just the tones of clear resentment that any young woman might employ to-day.

Mrs. Greene was back in the past, and even Miss Dorset caught something of the combined fire and delicacy that must have inspired such independence, such courage, and—according to the standards of 1870—such immodesty as to enable a betrothed young girl to arrange her own marriage in the teeth of her mother's disapproval.

For a moment it was all so vivid to Miss Dorset that she gave way to a spasm of indignation and admiration.

"Parents were far too harsh," she said. "It was shocking of the old father to try and push Mr. Greene into a business he didn't care for, but it must be splendid for you to think how you helped Mr. Greene to succeed."

Mrs. Greene only answered by a vague: "What do you say?"

She had leaped thirty years and was fingering rather sadly a star sapphire beautifully set in diamonds to form a brooch. Presently she laid it down and sitting with her hands folded in her lap fell into one of those wideawake trances that ended too often in melancholy.

"What a beautiful brooch that is," ventured Miss Dorset.

There was no answer and no indication that Mrs. Greene had even heard the remark.

Miss Dorset tried again.

"Is it a star sapphire?" she asked. "I don't think I've ever seen one like that."

Mrs. Greene roused herself, but she spoke heavily and limply.

"Yes, it's a star sapphire, Geoffrey gave it to me." There was a long pause. "We had a quarrel," she said at last, "nothing very much; it began just as a disagreement of opinion, but I was very hot-tempered; I always said more than I meant. So Geoffrey gave me this brooch," she ended, inconsequently, a little furrow of pain forming between her eyebrows at the recollection.

Miss Dorset murmured something inaudible, unable to offer any comfort for a quarrel which had begun and ended probably thirty years ago. Rather awkwardly, anxious to make a diversion, she moved come cases nearer to Mrs. Greene. By chance one of them contained the brooch which had been spoken of in the morning.

"That's what I want," said Mrs. Greene triumphantly, her depression completely banished. "That's the brooch I want you to have; it was another of my wedding presents and I used to wear it a great deal, but I never wear rubies now, and I would like you to have it."

It was a very fine ruby. The sun lit up its dark wine-coloured heart and turned to fire the diamond pentacle in which it was set.

Miss Dorset caught something of its glow and radiance.

"I can't possibly thank you," she said, "I've never had anything so lovely before; it will give me real happiness."

With an unusually impulsive and graceful movement she lifted Mrs. Greene's hand and kissed it.

The old lady was amazed at the happiness she had caused. She remembered her thoughts of the morning. The brooch had seemed then a cold and trivial thing. Now, lying on Miss Dorset's hand, enriched by her unconcealed pleasure, it became a warm symbol of affection and gratitude.

Mrs. Greene thought of services rendered, of fine discretions, of considerateness carried far beyond the borders of duty into the realm of intuition, and she was filled with immense satisfaction. There were good things in life: loyalties, restraints, disinterested devotion. One lived from day to day, from year to year, and at the end it was bitten deep into the mind that baseness was transitory, but that good quality endured.

Mrs. Greene braced herself.

"Miss Dorset," she said sternly, "all my life I've cared for the quality of things and people. I'm old now; old enough to know the truth that lies in platitudes, but if you see me slipping into an easy tolerance, and putting up with the second rate, you'll know that I'm dead, though my body lives on."

Miss Dorset was startled. Inadvertently she expressed her crude and simple opinion, speaking as to an equal, happily forgetful of the responsibility of youth towards age; a responsibility that leads to concealments and subterfuges, to the elimination from conversation of anything that might be unpalatable or alarming; to the whole softening process that makes for safety and, presumably, content.

"Oh, no, Mrs. Greene," she said confidently. "You'll never become tolerant. Young Mrs. Geoffrey often says you live on your critical faculty and that it's my duty to give you something to pull to pieces every day."

Mrs. Greene was delighted. She laughed with pure pleasure.

"Helen says that, does she? Well, she's quite right; I'm a malicious intolerant old woman, and I don't suppose I'll change now."

At that moment there was the sound of a car drawing up at the front door. Mrs. Greene looked in consternation at Miss Dorset.

"There's Sarah," she said. "And I've done nothing that I meant to. I haven't even decided whether my necklace needs cleaning or not. You'll have to put all these away now, Miss Dorset, and get them out again to-morrow. But it doesn't matter; I've had a very happy afternoon and now I'll go into the drawing-room and wait for Sarah."

IV

Mrs. Hugh Greene arrived with a characteristic absence of fuss and impedimenta. She greeted Miss Dorset in the hall with a friendly smile, chatted to her for a moment and then said:

"I'll find Mrs. Greene in the drawing-room, I suppose?"

"Wouldn't you like to take your coat off, and have a little rest?" suggested Miss Dorset.

"No thank you. I'm not tired; it's nothing of a journey; less than two hours in the train."

Mrs. Hugh spoke briskly and appeared quite fresh and trim in her small, old-fashioned hat and the neat dark coat and skirt of a mode which she had first worn ten years ago, and had simply caused to be repeated ever since.

Eight years younger than her sister-in-law, she was at a different stage of life; still active and independent, able to make plans, carry out her arrangements, and work indefatigably in her garden regardless of wind and weather. Miss Dorset, however, looking at her with an eye trained by experience to note each subtle stage of increasing frailty, thought that Mrs. Hugh was beginning to show her age, and watching her walk through to the drawing-room she decided that her air of youthfulness was deceptive; it was more an effect of manner than of physique. Later, when she rejoined the two old ladies for tea, she was confirmed in her opinion. They were both quite definitely old ladies; one apparently well, the other obviously in broken health, but certainly of the same generation.

She placed a little table beside each of their chairs and busied herself with the tea things.

As she poured out, she was keenly aware of Mrs. Greene's mood, sensitive to the incisive alertness of her speech without actually hearing what she was saying. All this expenditure of energy would have to be paid for by extra rest. Mrs. Greene's personality might over-ride her bodily ills and lend her a moment of spurious strength, but the consequent nervous reaction would be all the more merciless.

Miss Dorset sighed as she refilled the tea cups. The alternatives were so clear. Mrs. Greene could either relax her grip on life and slide into a state of comfortable coma, with no ups and down, no painful efforts and no particular alleviations, or she could live on for a few years paying a heavy toll for her good moments in hours of depression and physical malaise. There was no choice; the first was temperamentally impossible.

Miss Dorset sighed again, and then resolutely set herself to join in the conversation.

Mrs. Greene's expression was so deliberately blank as to be provocative.

"Yes," she was saying, "Jessica and Hugh get home on Tuesday, but I shan't be seeing them till the party on Friday, I expect."

"What party do you mean?" asked Mrs. Hugh innocently.

"Oh, you haven't had your invitation yet?" Mrs. Greene replied with feigned surprise. "Well, it's a little dinner Edith is giving for the six Mrs. Greenes. It will be so nice to have a reunion that we can all enjoy."

Mrs. Hugh looked aghast.

"I never heard you say anything so fantastic in all your life," she said decisively. "You may have something in common with your daughters-in-law, but I certainly have not. I never agree with Edith, and I disapprove of Dora."

"I knew you would say that," said Mrs. Greene triumphantly. "You've got some sense, Sarah. It's a shocking plan, but when Edith gets an idea into her head you know very well nothing will get it out again."

"Do you mean to say you're taking the trouble to go up to town just to fall in with a whim of Edith's?"

Mrs. Greene looked a little helpless, and Miss Dorset interposed quickly.

"Mr. Rodney is coming in the car to fetch Mrs. Greene. He is very anxious to have her up in town again, even if it's only for a night."

Mrs. Hugh's rather stern face softened.

"Rodney is a good boy," she said. "You know, Margaret, the last time I saw him it struck me that he was looking very like Geoffrey did at that age."

"Do you think so?" asked Mrs. Greene eagerly. "I sometimes see it, and then sometimes I can't see it, but I think Hugh is very like his grandfather."

"Not nearly so good-looking. Geoffrey was very good-looking, Margaret; he had a fine scholarly head."

"Hugh was handsome, too, Sarah. We were two fine couples in the old days. Lavinia is like what I used to be."

"Yes, I think she is," agreed Mrs. Hugh. "And Martin is a nice little boy, and very sensibly brought up. Tell me, Margaret," she asked suddenly, "does it make you feel different to be a great-grandmother? You're at the head of such a long line and I'm so isolated in a way."

She broke off, and then added before Mrs. Greene had time to answer.

"Not that I'm not fond of Rodney and my own nephew Roger. Only not having children and children's children makes me feel a little stranded sometimes now that my own generation has ebbed away and left me high and dry."

Mrs. Greene looked at her intently.

"I didn't know you felt like that, Sarah," she said. "But I tell you this. At our age children are very little use. It's Geoffrey I think of all the time, and I don't doubt but that Hugh is nearly always in your mind.

"That's quite true," answered Mrs. Hugh simply. "I think it's only natural that such happy marriages as ours were, should remain green in our minds. I've never grown acclimatised to life without him. Somehow familiar things don't seem so familiar."

Silence fell and Miss Dorset looked at the two quiet figures whose silence covered so adequately their pain and rebellion.

"If you would care for a little rest before dinner, I think perhaps we ought to go upstairs now," she suggested.

Mrs. Greene got up, waving away the proffered arm, which she would accept only in the absence of visitors.

"Take Mrs. Hugh to her room," she ordered. "Sarah, we've put you in the front room because of the view; the trees are lovely just now."

"I'm sure they are; it gave me quite a pang to leave Lynton even for a week," said Mrs. Hugh conversationally as she left the room in the wake of Miss Dorset.

Left alone Mrs. Greene walked with difficulty over to the window. When Miss Dorset came back she found her standing there, a small crumpled figure, darkly outlined against the orange curtains, gazing at the gathering dusk with the inscrutability of her many years carved round her mouth, but with a mysteriously youthful speculation alight in her eyes.

V

Dinner was a meal of some ceremony.

The two old ladies sat at either end of the table with Miss Dorset at Mrs. Greene's right, ready to help if her unsteady hands proved unequal to the task of cutting her meat, or raising her wine glass, which she insisted on having filled to the precisely correct level.

Mrs. Greene, in spite of all her modern outlook, had retained in many ways an old-fashioned eye, and she had never been able to accustom herself to the fashion for bare tables. It struck her as slightly barbaric; not in keeping with the solemn tradition that had built itself up around the ritual of dinner, a tradition that to her mind necessitated the use of fine linen, heavy silver, and good china. Candle-light, too, was abhorrent to her. The flicker of each separate candle, and the alternate dark patches and uncertain pools of light on the table which she considered should be illuminated by a steady radiance, suggested to her something slightly decadent and certainly grotesque. So the table was lit from directly above, by a round brass fitting, each of whose five globes was covered by a rose silk shade. This, with sconces on every wall, effectively dissipated the gloominess of the severe shadowy room.

This evening one of the finest damask cloths with inlets of lace at each corner had been put on in honour of Mrs. Hugh, and the heavy silver bowl in the centre with its four attendant silver vases arranged diamond-wise contained the last poor blooms from the garden, mixed with leaves whose colours ranged from saffron through orange and russet to flaming scarlet.

It was in keeping with Mrs. Greene's love of formality that the conversation at dinner should run along prescribed lines. General topics of any sort, trivial or abstruse, she welcomed—but forbade anything of a personal nature to be discussed; gossip must be kept for the drawing-room. This was sometimes a severe trial to Miss Dorset who at the end of a wearisome day found herself forced to eschew just those comfortable irrelevances which were all that occurred to her tired mind.

Mrs. Hugh, however, like Mrs. Greene, was of that self-effacing generation of women that had been brought up to make conversation at dinner with the sole purpose of entertaining the gentlemen, and she perfectly understood why clothes and personalities were permissible in one room and taboo in another.

Accordingly throughout the meal the two old ladies were accustomed to exchange a number of superficial generalisations which both were too fatigued to pursue.

Mrs. Greene's single moment of animation was also one of indignation.

"You've not drunk your sherry," she said crossly. "It's still the sherry that Geoffrey laid down and I've got enough palate left to know that it's good. Why don't you drink it?"

"You know I never care much about wine," Mrs. Hugh replied, "I think the only thing I really enjoy is a glass of good claret."

Mrs. Greene smiled.

"I remembered that," she said. "I told them to bring up a bottle of the Pontet Canet. We had some up last time Rodney was here, and it's got a beautiful bouquet."

"I shall enjoy that, Margaret," said Mrs. Hugh. "You know I've never had to add anything to the cellar since Hugh died. Sometimes I've been very sorry to think of the 1906 Veuve Clicquot going past it's best; in fact once or twice I've thought of giving it to one of the young couples, but young people don't seem to have cellars nowadays."

"That's true." Mrs. Greene's assent was a little morose. "They don't go in for anything so permanent. If they want something to drink they just ring up a shop and order a few bottles."

"There have been great changes in the last twenty years," reflected Mrs. Hugh. "Some for the worse, no doubt, and many for the better, but I confess I no longer find myself able to adapt very readily. I'm too old to change."

This was dangerously like an expression of personal feeling and Mrs. Hugh hastily covered her tracks by asking Mrs. Greene's opinion of a new book of travel.

Dinner progressed slowly. The pheasant appeared, three small slices of breast were eaten by the three ladies, it was removed and the peach tart took its place. Mrs. Hugh, for courtesy's sake, toyed with a minute piece of pastry, Miss Dorset enjoyed a reasonable helping, but Mrs. Greene lacked the energy even to taste it. It was succeeded by a savoury, which again for courtesy's sake all three ladies made an effort to eat.

At last the interminable meal was ended. A little food had been eaten, a little wine drunk, and a prolonged exhibition of fortitude and good manners had been given by Mrs. Greene, whose weakness clamoured for the easy comfort of a tray by the fire, but whose instincts and training drove her to endure the full ceremony prescribed by the laws of good society.

She was very tired when they went through to the drawing-room. She sat relaxed and huddled in her armchair, stretching out her chill hands to the fire, which leaped and spluttered.

"The logs are green," she said dreamily. "But I like to hear them hiss like that."

"I like all country sounds and sights," answered Mrs. Hugh.

"That's what you live on, Sarah, I understand very well; Lynton is what you live on from day to day; and you've got Hugh and your past for a background."

There was a pause, broken presently by Mrs. Hugh who spoke quickly and jerkily in her insistency.

"I find Lynton very lovely," she said. "It's to satisfying and complete. I turn over the earth and take out things and plant other things, and they grow and flower, and when they die, I plant something else. And it all goes on round and round, so that I feel quite confident that beauty renews itself even if it doesn't last, and so I'm able to be happy."

Her credo ended abruptly.

"We're optimists, Sarah," said Mrs. Greene. "You know, only this morning I was thinking something like that, but I don't remember now what it was. I forget things; I forget the simplest things sometimes."

"Don't let that worry you," advised Mrs. Hugh, gently. "We all forget things when we're tired."

"I worry when I'm tired," confided Mrs. Greene. "Everything worries me; the thought of Edith's party next week worries me. I don't feel I can face it."

She relapsed into silence. In the glow of the fire her face looked pinched and wan. Suddenly it sharpened into irritation.

"I must go to bed, Sarah," she said. "I'm sorry to leave you so early, but I've talked enough for to-night, and I'll see you in the morning."

She stood up, tremulous and uncertain.

"Miss Dorset," she called querulously, "help me to bed, Miss Dorset, I'm tired."

MRS. HUGH GREENE

MRS. HUGH GREENE

I

"What are you doing this morning, Aunt Sarah?" asked Mary Dodds on the first morning of Mrs. Hugh Greene's visit. "I have to do some shopping, but I'd love it if you would come with me."

"No thank you, dear," answered Mrs. Greene. "I have an appointment at 12 o'clock, and if you'll excuse me, I won't come back to lunch."

"You're sure you won't be too tired if you stay out both morning and afternoon?"

Young Mrs. Dodds was genuinely solicitous, and her husband, Roger, added quietly, "You're not looking too well, Aunt Sarah; why not see a doctor while you are in town?"

"That is just what I'm doing at 12 o'clock, but you needn't worry, my dears; I'm a little run down perhaps, and don't forget that I'm seventy this year so I can hardly expect to be quite as active as I used to be. But I shall come quietly back and have a rest before tea, if I may."

"Let me bring tea up to your room and have it there with you," suggested Mary, "Ellen is out this afternoon, and I shall be getting tea myself anyhow, and it would be nice for you to have it in bed and then rest on till dinner-time."

Mrs. Greene turned to Roger.

"Your wife is the most thoughtful young woman I know," she said briskly, "You did very well for yourself when you married her."

Roger laughed, kissed Mary, who was pink and flustered, and left for his office.

"You can't think how much nicer you are than most relations-in-law, Aunt Sarah," said Mary impulsively, "you're so much easier than my mother-in-law somehow. She expects so much of me that I just get futile and incompetent when she is about."

"I've never had any children, you know, and I think perhaps that makes me less exacting than Elinor. She has always made too many demands on Roger, and that leads to difficulties.

"You're awfully wise," said Mary slowly, "I think all old people are much wiser than middle-aged ones, especially women; perhaps in ten years' time Mrs. Dodds will be quite sensible."

She smiled at Mrs. Greene who thought of her uncertain, irritable, dissatisfied sister-in-law, and smiled back at the improbability of her developing into the type of tranquil old lady that Mary seemed to hope for. Then, looking more closely at Mary, she noticed that there was an expression of strain and fatigue on her usually pink and healthy face.

"You're not looking very well yourself, Mary," she said.

Mary hesitated for a moment.

"I'd like to tell you," she said uncertainly; "Roger thought I oughtn't to because I haven't told his mother yet, but after all you're very discreet, aren't you? We're having a baby in about six months, and he is rather worried about it because we can't really afford it."

Her lip trembled a little, but she steadied her voice and went on, "I'm really glad about it even though it does mean getting rid of Ellen and only having a cook and economising a lot, but of course it isn't much fun for Roger, and he does work hard."

"Well, I think that is a very nice piece of news," said Mrs. Greene warmly, "I shall thoroughly enjoy having a grandnephew or niece, and you must let me pay your doctor and help you in any way I can. As a matter of fact I get tired sometimes of hearing my sister-in-law talking of her great-grandchild and all her grandchildren. You don't know old Mrs. Greene do you? She's a delightful woman, but sometimes I feel she forgets there are other young couples in the world besides Lavinia and Martin and the young Geoffreys, and now the Hughs."

"Thank you ever so much, Aunt Sarah, it's lovely of you, and it will be a weight off Roger's mind. He does work so hard, and he earns so little."

Mary's voice rose almost to a wail, but Aunt Sarah only said crisply:

"Oughtn't you to go and see the cook now? You mustn't bother about me; I'll write a letter or two before I go out."

Young Mrs. Dodds gulped a little and blew her nose, but as the parlourmaid came in, cast an injured glance at the two ladies still sitting over the breakfast table and then swept out with pursed lips, she was sufficiently in command of herself to laugh and say, "I shan't mind getting rid of her anyhow. She's horribly haughty."

Mrs. Greene left alone, sat for a moment in thought before she crossed the hall to the small living room. She wondered how Roger's inadequate income was going to be stretched to meet the demands of the unborn child which was already beginning to assume a definite importance in her mind.

I'm as bad as Margaret, she thought; I didn't really care so very much when her great-grandchild was born, and yet it was my great-grandnephew after all. But there is something more intimate about this one; it's a Dodds, and I feel possessive about it. Odd that after being Mrs. Hugh Greene for nearly fifty years, I should still be Sarah Dodds.

Her thoughts turned back to Roger; something ought to be done for him; his position in the rather depressing solicitor's office where he worked was unsatisfactory.

As Ellen again entered the room, armed with a formidable frown and a tray, Mrs. Greene went across the hall and sat down to write. She found herself unable to concentrate on her letters. Either the thought of the impending interview was draining her of her usually resolute vitality, or the news that Mary had given her had provoked an emotional reaction.

Her heart stirred almost painfully as she thought of Roger, his enduring good qualities, his affection for her, his social inadequacy and uncouthness that concealed a good brain and a sense of humour. She had been pleased with his marriage to Mary, the least exacting of women, unaware of most of her husband's deficiencies, and tolerant of those she recognised.

A small sinister idea insinuated itself into Mrs. Greene's mind. Unaware that she spoke aloud she formulated her fear in words.

"Perhaps on this bright November day I shall have to make my will, and then Mary need not economise over her baby."

The rich autumn sun struck a shaft across the desk that warmed her chill hand, but Mrs. Greene shivered as she looked across the narrow street and steadied herself to accept the immediate future.

II

Dr. Stiff looked at the quiet elderly woman who was sitting on the other side of his desk, and chose his words carefully.

"I'm afraid, Mrs. Greene, that I shall have to call upon your courage and fortitude to listen to what I cannot avoid telling you. I gather that your suspicions amounted almost to a certainty before you consulted me, and I am unfortunately forced to confirm them. There is a considerable growth in the left breast, which, owing to the state of your heart, can't be removed. That being so, we can only regard it as a definite signal which must not be ignored."

He spoke gently, but the crude fact implicit in his words stuck out clearly. There was a moment's pause. Mrs. Greene's hands were folded in her lap; her throat felt a little dry, and for a moment the walls of the room wavered uncertainly towards her and the motes dancing in a streak of sun across the floor seemed to swell gigantically and overpoweringly. But as she cleared her throat and prepared to speak, they diminished and the room resumed its normal proportions.

"Thank you," she said steadily. "I quite understand. You mean that I have cancer and you are not able to operate. How long can I expect to live?"

Dr. Stiff looked distressed at the uncompromising question, and his hand hovered over the bell as he answered:

"The disease is in its final stage, Mrs. Greene. You must have had many attacks of pain recently, and there won't be very many more."

He pressed the bell as he spoke, and almost immediately a nurse appeared with a little tray containing a glass and a decanter of brandy.