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beginning, called her mother-in-law by her Christian name, expressing to Monica’s ear indifference rather than intimacy.

Holding Robin very tightly by the hand, wondering, as she came, about acquired and innate instincts and their inheritance; wondering whether a seed of Clive’s dark time had drifted into the soul of his son—Monica obeyed the summons, drawing Robin to her knee as she took her chair near the fireplace and looked up at her daughter-in-law. As a little boy, Clive, too, had known moods, she remembered, of grief and panic. But she had been there to shield and soothe and understand. He did not hide from her when he was a little boy; as Robin—she felt sure of it—would hide from Hester.

‘I’ve something to tell you, that will please you,’ Hester was repeating. She had taken up her position again at the fireplace, but now she leaned back against the mantelpiece, raising her cigarette to her lips, drawing at it, then holding it off as if for scrutiny, her eyes half closed, her brows slightly knitted. She looked at her cigarette as if its taste disappointed her;—Monica had often noted the trick. She had never seen anyone smoke so constantly and with so little air of relish.

‘It’s a very important decision Clive and I have