hair, and Mrs. Hilary and Barry
Briscoe were left alone. Mrs. Hilary and this pleasant, brown, friendly
young man, who cared for Workers' Education and Continuation Schools, and
Penal Reform, and Garden Cities, and Getting Things Done by Acts of
Parliament, about all which things Mrs. Hilary knew and cared nothing.
But vaguely she felt that they sprang out of and must include a care for
human beings as such, and that therefore Barry Briscoe would listen if
she told him things.

So (it came out of lying on grass, which Barry was doing) she told him
about the pneumonia of Neville as a child, how they had been staying in
Cornwall, miles from a doctor, and without Mr. Hilary, and Mrs. Hilary
had been in despair; how Jim, a little chap of twelve, had ridden off on
his pony in the night to fetch the doctor, across the moors. A long
story; stories about illnesses always are. Mrs. Hilary got worked up and
excited as she told it; it came back to her so vividly, the dreadful
night.

"He was a Dr. Chalmers, and so kind. When he saw Neville he was
horrified; by that time she was delirious. He said if Jim hadn't gone
straight to him but had waited till the morning, it might have been too
late...."

"Too late: quite. ..." Barry Briscoe had an understanding, sympathetic
grip of one's last few words. So much of the conversation of others
eludes one, but one should hold fast the last few words.

"Oh played, Gerda: did you that time, Bendish...."

Gerda had put on, probably by accident, a sudden, absurd twist that had
made a fool of Rodney.

That was what Barry Briscoe was really attending to, the silly game. This
alert, seemingly interested, attentive young man had a nice manner, that
led you on, but he didn't really care. He lived in the moment: he cared
for prisoners and workers, and probably for people who were ill _now_,
but not that someone had been ill all those years ago. He only pretended
to care; he was polite. He turned his keen, pleasant face up to her when
he had done shouting about the game, and said "How splendid that he got
to you in time!" but he didn't really care. Mrs. Hilary found that women
were better listeners than men. Women are perhaps better trained; they
think it more ill-mannered not to show interest. They will listen to
stories about servants, or reports of the inane sayings of infants,
they will hear you through, without the flicker of a yawn, but with
ejaculations and noddings, while you tell them ab