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the room, smoking, walking up and down, his hands behind his back, and in her chair by the fire Monica forgot him, utterly forgot him for a moment, as she sat and pondered this echo of her thoughts. Was that not exactly what life had done to her—after all the hopes and strivings? It had done worse than merely leave her; it had left her in the lurch. She saw the posture;— bent; arrested; passive and painful.—The lurch, in which one was fixed and tormented. Yet she, too, perhaps, like Captain Ingpen, preferred even the lurch to Nirvana. ‘I suppose because one goes on hoping,’ she heard herself say.

It was the insidious, dangerous habit, and she had not known till now that it would carry her so far. She rose, disconcerted, as she heard that she had spoken the words aloud. ‘I really must be going,’ she said. ‘You must let me come for tea some day.—I shall have some plants for your border if you care for them.—I like your house, inside; better inside than out. It is rather dreary out, I think. But that can be helped, too.’ She had picked up her gloves and stood buttoning her coat at throat and hip, and, making no comment on the suddenness of her decision, Captain Ingpen led her out into the hall, only saying: ‘I will walk back with