better than the way Rosalind
went on now, disgracing him and getting talked about, and making him hate
his mother for disliking her. He hadn't even come with her to the bus, to
carry her parcels for her.... That wasn't like Gilbert. As a rule he had
excellent manners, though he was not affectionate like Jim.

Jim, Jim, Jim. Should she go to Harley Street? What was the use? She
would find only Margery there; Jim would be out. Margery had no serious
faults except the one, that she had taken the first place in Jim's
affections. Before Margery, Neville had had this place, but Mrs. Hilary
had been able, with Neville's never failing and skilful help, to disguise
this from herself. You can't disguise a wife's place in her husband's
heart. And Jim's splendid children too, whom she adored--they looked at
her with Margery's brown eyes instead of Jim's grey-blue ones. And they
preferred really (she knew it) their maternal grandmother, the jolly lady
who took them to the theatres.

Mrs. Hilary passed a church. Religion. Some people found help there. But
it required so much of you, was so exhausting in its demands. Besides, it
seemed infinitely far away--an improbable, sad, remote thing, that gave
you no human comfort. Psycho-analysis was better; that opened gates into
a new life. "Know thyself," Mrs. Hilary murmured, kindling at the
prospect. Most knowledge was dull, but never that.

"I will ring up from Waterloo and make an appointment," she thought.

CHAPTER VI

JIM

1

The psycho-analyst doctor was little and dark and while he was talking he
looked not at Mrs. Hilary but down at a paper whereon he drew or wrote
something she tried to see and couldn't. She came to the conclusion after
a time that he was merely scribbling for effect.

"Insomnia," he said. "Yes. You know what _that_ means?"

She said, foolishly, "That I can't sleep," and he gave her a glance of
contempt and returned to his scribbling.

"It means," he told her, "that you are afraid of dreaming. Your
unconscious self won't _let_ you sleep.... Do you often recall your
dreams when you wake?"

"Sometimes."

"Tell me some of them, please."

"Oh, the usual things, I suppose. Packing; missing trains; meeting
people; and just nonsense that means nothing. All the usual things, that
everyone dreams about."

At each thing she said he nodded, and scribbled with his pencil. "Quite,"
he said, "quite. They're bad enough in meaning, the dreams you've
ment