er of the fire, the quiver of the reading-lamp
upon their hands, the white blur from the window; a pause of shifting
and eternal shadows.

"I almost think you forget you're a girl."

Margaret was startled and a little annoyed. "I'm twenty-nine," she
remarked. "That's not so wildly girlish."

Mrs. Wilcox smiled.

"What makes you say that? Do you mean that I have been gauche and rude?"

A shake of the head. "I only meant that I am fifty-one, and that to
me both of you--Read it all in some book or other; I cannot put things
clearly."

"Oh, I've got it--inexperience. I'm no better than Helen, you mean, and
yet I presume to advise her."

"Yes. You have got it. Inexperience is the word."

"Inexperience," repeated Margaret, in serious yet buoyant tones.

"Of course, I have everything to learn--absolutely everything--just
as much as Helen. Life's very difficult and full of surprises. At all
events, I've got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go
straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the
submerged--well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck,
because they're so contradictory. It's then that proportion comes in--to
live by proportion. Don't BEGIN with proportion. Only prigs do that.
Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have
failed, and a deadlock--Gracious me, I've started preaching!"

"Indeed, you put the difficulties of life splendidly," said Mrs. Wilcox,
withdrawing her hand into the deeper shadows. "It is just what I should
have liked to say about them myself."

CHAPTER IX

Mrs. Wilcox cannot be accused of giving Margaret much information about
life. And Margaret, on the other hand, has made a fair show of modesty,
and has pretended to an inexperience that she certainly did not feel.
She had kept house for over ten years; she had entertained, almost with
distinction; she had brought up a charming sister, and was bringing up
a brother. Surely, if experience is attainable, she had attained it. Yet
the little luncheon-party that she gave in Mrs. Wilcox's honour was not
a success. The new friend did not blend with the "one or two delightful
people" who had been asked to meet her, and the atmosphere was one of
polite bewilderment. Her tastes were simple, her knowledge of culture
slight, and she was not interested in the New English Art Club, nor in
the dividing-line between Journalism and Literature, which was started
as a conversational