is high affairs. She was almost aghast
to realise how very small, how very pale, how atomy he looked--to
confront a howling world! And so to listen to the comfortable words
of Mrs. Furnivall-Briggs. "My dear, they've no use for us. The utmost
we can do is to see that they have good food. And warm socks. I am
untiring about warm socks. That is what I am always girding my
committee about. I tell the Vicar, 'My dear sir, I will give you their
souls, if you leave me their soles.' Do you see? He is so much amused.
But he is a very human person. Except at the altar. _There_ he's every
inch the priest. Well, good-bye. I thought Lancelot looked delightful.
He's taller than my Geoff. But I must fly. I have a meeting of workers
at four-fifteen. Bless me, I had no idea it was four o'clock. The
parish-room, Alphonse." A Spartan mother.

Lucy paid two calls, on people who were out, and indulged herself with
shopping in Sloane Street. Lancelot had recently remarked on her
gloves. "You have jolly thin hands," he had said. "It's having good
gloves, I expect." The memory of such delightful sayings encouraged
her to be extravagant. She thought that perhaps he would find her
ankles worth a moment--if she took pains with them. Anyhow, he was
worth dressing for. James never noticed anything--or if he did, his
ambiguity was two-edged. "Extraordinary hat," he might say, and drop
his eyeglass, which always gave an air of finality to comments of the
sort. But her shopping done, for Lancelot's sake, life stretched
before her a grey waste. She went back to tea, to a novel, to a weekly
paper full of photographs of other people's houses, dogs, children and
motor-cars. It was dark, she was bored as well as child-sick,
dissatisfied with herself as well as heart-hungry. She must get
herself something to do, she said. Who was the Vicar of Onslow Square?
She didn't know. Somehow, religion, to her, had always seemed such a
very private affair. Not a soul must be near her when she said her
prayers--except Lancelot, of course. When he was at home she always
said them while he said his. Last night--ah, she had not been able to
say anything last night. All her faculties had been bent to watching
him at it. Was it bravery in him--or insensibility? She remembered Mr.
Urquhart had talked about it. "All boys are born stoics," he said,
"and all girls Epicureans. That's the instinct. They change places
when they grow up." Was James an Epicurean?

It was six o'cl