interest to Neville, taking up her medical studies again,"
was all she could really say. (What a hampering thing it is to be a
lady!) "She thoroughly enjoys it, and looks younger than ever. She is
playing a lot of tennis, and beats them all."

How absurdly her voice rang when she spoke of Neville or Jim! It always
made Rosalind's lip curl mockingly.

"Wonderful creature! I do admire her. When I'm her age I shall be too fat
to take any exercise at all. I think it's splendid of women who keep it
up through the forties.... _She_ won't be bored, even when she's sixty,
will she?"

That was a direct hit, which Mrs. Hilary could bear better than hits at
Neville.

"I see no reason," said Mrs. Hilary, "why Neville should ever be bored.
She has a husband and children. Long before she is sixty she will have
Kay's and Gerda's children to be interested in."

"No, I suppose one can't well be bored if one has grandchildren, can
one," Rosalind said, reflectively.

There was a silence, during which Mrs. Hilary's eyes, coldly meeting
Rosalind's with their satirical comment, said "I know you are too selfish
a woman ever to bear children, and I thank God for it. Little Hilarys who
should be half yours would be more than I could endure."

Rosalind, quite understanding, smiled her slow, full-mouthed, curling
smile, and held out to her mother-in-law the gold case with scented
cigarettes.

"Oh no, you don't, do you. I never can remember that. It's so unusual."

Her eyes travelled over Mrs. Hilary, from her dusty black shoes to her
pale, lined face. They put her, with deliberation, into the class with
companions, house-keepers, poor relations. Having successfully done that
(she knew it was successful, by Mrs. Hilary's faint flush) she said "You
don't look up to much, mother dear. Not as if Neville had been looking
after you very well."

Mrs. Hilary, seeing her chance, swallowed her natural feelings and took
it.

"The fact is, I sleep very badly. Not particularly just now, but
always.... I thought.... That is, someone told me ... that there have
been wonderful cures for insomnia lately ... through that new thing...."

"Which new thing? Sedobrol? Paraldehyd? Gilbert keeps getting absurd
powders and tablets of all sorts. Thank God, I always sleep like a top."

"No, not those. The thing _you_ practice. Psycho-analysis, I mean."

"Oh, psycho. But you wouldn't touch that, surely? I thought it was
anathema."

"But if it really does