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They walked in silence then between the hedgerows. A sense of excitement remained from her anger with Monica. Her thoughts were no longer occupied with Captain Ingpen and his daring; they had turned to Clive; not dreamlike now, not far away or forgotten. On the contrary, he stood out sharply in her mind; sharp, small and near, and, for the first time in her life, it felt to her as if she looked at her son coldly. Was he not weak? even a little fatuous? Was it not fatuous to thrust his wife on her as he had now done, imagining that the enforced intimacy would compel affection? The pain of the summer day when he had shattered all her joy returned to her, deepened by this strange sense of alienation. He had said that it was Hester’s idea, not his; he had said that Hester made him see her loneliness; he had understood her joy so little as to tell her that, and look for response and gratitude.

Captain Ingpen’s voice broke in strangely on her thoughts. ‘But what do you suppose one goes on hoping for?’

So far had she drifted on the dark current of her mood that she looked up at him almost with astonishment.

‘You said one went on hoping. You were thinking about preferring life to Nirvana.—What does