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Perhaps that was really the best thing she could do, Monica thought, sitting at her solitary tea-table in the still room afterwards. Hopelessness was flowing over her, hopelessness of herself, now, more than of the predicament; she herself, she saw it plainly, was, as much as Hester, the predicament. She was too young, too fierce, too unsubmissive to life. She could not give up Clive or Robin, that extension of Clive. As long as they were there and she loved them, she must suffer from the lack of them; and as long as Hester was there she must lack them. Why not make some excuse of health or purse—and go to France;—not with Norah and Celia and Captain Ingpen, that was a friendly absurdity;—but go;—far away; so that she might be removed, and finally removed from Clive’s life. Then she could remember him; as if he were dead.

As she was thinking these thoughts—half believing them, but only half—she saw his car drive up. She rose to her feet, pressing her forefinger hard against her lip, and, as she stood there, it was