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happy, I feel sure, with you and Celia. He has taken a great fancy to her already, and she to him, and you know that he has always really liked being with you rather than with me. You can tell him all the fairy-tales you like now, Monica! I was a beast that night.—Though it’s quite true that I don’t think they are good for him. As to the future, I shall never make any conditions about being allowed to see him and all that sort of sentimentality because I think it really dislocates a child’s life—having to adjust itself to two centres and care for two mothers.’ Here came a sentence that had been scratched out; but it could still be deciphered: ‘All the same I hope I shall see him sometimes,’ but, after this repented lapse into maternal weakness the letter resumed its steady course. ‘I don’t really think I am a maternal woman. I don’t understand children instinctively. It made me frightfully angry when I saw that you thought my book great rot, but I’m inclined now to believe that you were right; at least, that one needs more than a knowledge of psychology—and even more than being a mother—to write a book like that. Of course Robin doesn’t know that I am going; and it’s best that he should only realize, little by little, like the rest of the world, that I’m not coming back. I think I said yesterday the things