"I've got those rooms in Fig Tree Court. I shall soon be ready to
move my things in. I'll leave some of poor Vivie Warren's effects
behind if you don't mind, in case she comes back some day. Do you
think you can rub along if I take my departure next week? I want to
give myself a fortnight's bicycle holiday in Wales--as D.V.
Williams--a kind of honeymoon with Fate, before I settle down as a
law student. After I come back I can devote much of the summer
recess to our affairs, either openly or after office hours. You
could then take a holiday, in August. You badly need one. What about
Beryl?"

_Norie_: "Beryl is well over her accouchement and is confident of
being able to start work here on August 1.... It's a boy this time.
I haven't seen it, so I can't say whether it resembles a policeman
more than an architect. Besides babies up till the age of six months
only resemble macrocephalic idiots.... I shall be _wary_ with
Beryl--haven't committed myself--ourselves to any engagement beyond
six months. She's amazingly clever, but I should say quite
heartless. Two babies in three years, and both illegitimate--the
real Mrs. Architect very much upset, no doubt, Mr. Architect getting
wilder and wilder in his work through trying to maintain two
establishments--they say he left out all the sanitation in Sir Peter
Robinson's new house and let the builders rush up the walls without
damp courses--and it's killing her father, the Dean. It's not as
though she hid herself away, but she goes out so much! They are
talking of turning her out of her club because of the things she
says before the waitresses..."

_Vivie_: "What things?"

_Norie_: "Why, about its being very healthy to have babies when
you're between the ages of twenty and thirty; and how with this
twilight sleep business she doesn't mind how often; that it's fifty
times more interesting than breeding dogs and cats or guinea-pigs;
and she's surprised more single women don't take it up. I think she
must be detraquee.... I have a faint hope that by taking her in hand
and interesting her in our work--which _entre nous deux_--is turning
out to be very profitable--I may sober her and regularize her. No
doubt in 1950 most women will talk as she does to-day, but the
advance is too abrupt. It not only robs _her_ parents of all
happiness, but it upsets _my_ mother. She now wrings her hands over
her own past and fears that by working so strenuously for the
emancipation of women she ha