id not know what to say. Mrs. Wilcox had been overtired by the
shopping, and was inclined to hysteria.

"Howards End was nearly pulled down once. It would have killed me."

"I--Howards End must be a very different house to ours. We are fond of
ours, but there is nothing distinctive about it. As you saw, it is an
ordinary London house. We shall easily find another."

"So you think."

"Again my lack of experience, I suppose!" said Margaret, easing away
from the subject. "I can't say anything when you take up that line, Mrs.
Wilcox. I wish I could see myself as you see me--foreshortened into a
backfisch. Quite the ingenue. Very charming--wonderfully well read for
my age, but incapable--"

Mrs. Wilcox would not be deterred. "Come down with me to Howards End
now," she said, more vehemently than ever. "I want you to see it. You
have never seen it. I want to hear what you say about it, for you do put
things so wonderfully."

Margaret glanced at the pitiless air and then at the tired face of her
companion. "Later on I should love it," she continued, "but it's hardly
the weather for such an expedition, and we ought to start when we're
fresh. Isn't the house shut up, too?"

She received no answer. Mrs. Wilcox appeared to be annoyed.

"Might I come some other day?"

Mrs. Wilcox bent forward and tapped the glass. "Back to Wickham Place,
please!" was her order to the coachman. Margaret had been snubbed.

"A thousand thanks, Miss Schlegel, for all your help."

"Not at all."

"It is such a comfort to get the presents off my mind--the
Christmas-cards especially. I do admire your choice."

It was her turn to receive no answer. In her turn Margaret became
annoyed.

"My husband and Evie will be back the day after to-morrow. That is why
I dragged you out shopping to-day. I stayed in town chiefly to shop,
but got through nothing, and now he writes that they must cut their
tour short, the weather is so bad, and the police-traps have been so
bad--nearly as bad as in Surrey. Ours is such a careful chauffeur, and
my husband feels it particularly hard that they should be treated like
road-hogs."

"Why?"

"Well, naturally he--he isn't a road-hog."

"He was exceeding the speed-limit, I conclude. He must expect to suffer
with the lower animals."

Mrs. Wilcox was silenced. In growing discomfort they drove homewards.
The city seemed Satanic, the narrower streets oppressing like the
galleries of a mine.

No harm was done by t