Though Thurston Square saw little of Mrs. Majendie, the glory of Mrs. Eliott's Thursdays remained undiminished. The same little procession filed through her drawing-room as before. Mrs. Pooley, Miss Proctor, the Gardners, and Canon Wharton. Mrs. Eliott was more than ever haggard and pursuing; she had more than ever the air of clinging, desperate and exhausted, on her precipitous intellectual heights.

But Mrs. Pooley never flagged, possibly because her ideas were vaguer and more miscellaneous, and therefore less exhausting. It was she who now urged Mrs. Eliott on. This year Mrs. Pooley was going in for thought-power, and for mind-control, and had drawn Mrs. Eliott in with her. They still kept it up for hours together, and still they dreaded the disastrous invasions of Miss Proctor.

Miss Proctor rode roughshod over the thought-power, and trampled contemptuously on the mind-control. Mrs. Gardner's attitude was mysterious and unsatisfactory. She seemed to stand serenely on the shore of the deep sea where Mrs. Eliott and Mrs. Pooley were for ever plunging and sinking, and coming up again, bobbing and bubbling, to the surface. Her manner implied that she would die rather than go in with them; it also suggested that she knew rather more about the thought-power and the mind-control than they did; but that she did not wish to talk so much about it.

Mr. Eliott, dexterous as ever, and fortified by the exact sciences, took refuge from the occult under his covering of profound stupidity. He had a secret understanding with Dr. Gardner on the subject. His spirit no longer searched for Dr. Gardner's across the welter of his wife's drawing-room, knowing that it would find it at the club.

Now, in October, about four o'clock on the Thursday after Peggy's birthday, Canon Wharton and Miss Proctor met at Mrs. Eliott's. The Canon had watched his opportunity and drawn his hostess apart.

"May I speak with you a moment," he said, "before your other guests arrive?"

Mrs. Eliott led him to a secluded sofa. "If you'll sit here," said she, "we can leave Johnson to entertain Miss Proctor."

"I am perplexed and distressed," said the Canon, "about our dear Mrs. Majendie."

Mrs. Eliott's eyes darkened with anxiety. She clasped her hands. "Oh why? What is it? Do you mean about the dear little girl?"

"I know nothing about the little girl. But I hear very unpleasant things about her husband."

"What things?"

The Canon's face was reticent and grim. He wished Mrs. Eliott to understand that he was no unscrupulous purveyor of gossip; that if he spoke, it was under constraint and severe necessity.

"I do not," said the Canon, "usually give heed to disagreeable reports. But I am afraid that, where there is such a dense cloud of smoke, there must be some fire."

"I think," said Mrs. Eliott, "perhaps they didn't get on very well together once. But they seem to have made it up after the sister's death. She has been happier these last three years. She has been a different woman."

"The same woman, my dear lady, the same woman. Only a better saint. For the last three years, they say, he has been living with another woman."

"Oh—it's impossible. Impossible. He is away a great deal—but—"

"He is away a great deal too often. Running up to Scarby every week in that yacht of his. In with the Ransomes and all that disreputable set."

"Is Lady Cayley in Scale?"

"Lady Cayley is at Scarby."

"Do you mean to say—"

"I mean," said the Canon, rising, "to say nothing."

Mrs. Eliott detained him with her eyes of anguish.

"Canon Wharton—do you think she knows?"

"I cannot tell you."

The Canon never told. He was far too clever.

Mrs. Eliott wandered to Miss Proctor.

"Do you know," said Miss Proctor, searching Mrs. Eliott's face with an inquisitive gaze, "how our friends, the Majendies, are getting on?"

"Oh, as usual. I see very little of her now. Anne is quite taken up with her little girl and with her good works."

"Oh! That," said Miss Proctor, "was a most unsuitable marriage."

It was five o'clock. The Canon and Miss Proctor had drunk their two cups of tea and departed. Mrs. Pooley had arrived soon after four; she lingered, to talk a little more about the thought-power and the mind-control. Mrs. Pooley was convinced that she could make things happen. That they were, in fact, happening. But Mrs. Eliott was no longer interested.

Mrs. Pooley, too, departed, feeling that dear Fanny's Thursday had been a disappointment. She had been quite unable to sustain the conversation at its usual height.

Mrs. Pooley indubitably gone, Mrs. Eliott wandered down to Johnson in his study. There, in perfect confidence, she revealed to him the Canon's revelations.

Johnson betrayed no surprise. That story had been going the round of his club for the last two years.

"What will Anne do?" said Mrs. Eliott, "when she finds out?"

"I don't suppose she'll do anything."

"Will she get a separation, do you think?"

"How can I tell you?"

"I wonder if she knows."

"She's not likely to tell you, if she does."

"She's bound to know, sooner or later. I wonder if one ought to prepare her?"

"Prepare her for what?"

"The shock of it. I'm afraid of her hearing in some horrid way. It would be so awful, if she didn't know."

"It can't be pleasant, any way, my dear."

"Do advise me, Johnson. Ought I or ought I not to tell her?"

Mr. Eliott's face told how his nature shrank from the agony of decision. But he was touched by her distress.

"Certainly not. Much better let well alone."

"If I were only sure that it was well I was letting alone."

"Can't be sure of anything. Give it the benefit of the doubt."

"Yes—but if you were I?"

"If I were you I should say nothing."

"That only means that I should say nothing if I were you. But I'm not."

"Be thankful, my dear, at any rate, for that."

He took up a book, The Search for Stellar Parallaxes, a book that he understood and that his wife could not understand. That book was the sole refuge open to him when pressed for an opinion. He knew that, when she saw him reading it, she would realise that he was her intellectual master.

The front doorbell announced the arrival of another caller.

She went away, wondering, as he meant she should, whether he were so very undecided, after all. Certainly his indecisions closed a subject more effectually than other people's verdicts.

She found Anne in the empty, half-dark drawing-room waiting for her. She had chosen the darkest corner, and the darkest hour.

"Fanny," she said, and her voice trembled, "are you alone? Can I speak to you a moment?"

"Yes, dear, yes. Just let me leave word with Mason that I'm not at home. But no one will come now."

In the interval she heard Anne struggling with the sob that had choked her voice. She felt that the decision had been made for her. The terrible task had been taken out of her hands. Anne knew.

She sat down beside her friend and put her hand on her shoulder. In that moment poor Fanny's intellectual vanities dropped from her, like an inappropriate garment, and she became pure woman. She forgot Anne's recent disaffection and her coldness, she forgot the years that had separated them, and remembered only the time when Anne was the girlfriend who had loved her, and had come to her in all her griefs, and had made her house her home.

"What is it, dear?" she murmured.

Anne felt for her hand and pressed it. She tried to speak, but no words would come.

"Of course," thought Mrs. Eliott, "she cannot tell me. But she knows I know."

"My dear," she said, "can I or Johnson help you?"

Anne shook her head; but she pressed her friend's hand tighter.

Wondering what she could do or say to help her, Mrs. Eliott resolved to take Anne's knowledge for granted, and act upon it.

"If there's trouble, dear, will you come to us? We want you to look on our house as a refuge, any hour of the day or night."

Anne stared at her friend. There was something ominous and dismaying in her solemn tenderness, and it roused Anne to wonder, even in her grief.

"You cannot help me, dear," she said. "No one can. Yet I had to come to you and tell you—"

"Tell me everything," said Mrs. Eliott, "if you can."

Anne tried to steady her voice to tell her, and failed. Then Fanny had an inspiration. She felt that she must divert Anne's thoughts from the grief that made her dumb, and get her to talk naturally of other things.

"How's Peggy?" said she. She knew it would be good to remind her that, whatever happened, she had still the child.

But at that question, Anne released Mrs. Eliott's hand, and laid her head back upon the cushion and cried.

"Dear," whispered Mrs. Eliott, with her inspiration full upon her, "you will always have her."

Then Anne sat up in her corner, and put away her tears, and controlled herself to speak.

"Fanny," she said, "Dr. Gardner has seen her. He says I shall not have her very long. Perhaps—a few years—if we take the very greatest care—"

"Oh, my dear! What is it?"

"It's her heart. I thought it was her spine, because of Edie. But it isn't. She has valvular disease. Oh, Fanny, I didn't think a little child could have it."

"Nor I," said Mrs. Eliott, shocked into a great calm. "But surely—if you take care—"

"No. He gives no hope. He only says a few years, if we leave Scale and take her into the country. She must never be overtired, never excited. We must never vex her. He says one violent crying fit might kill her. And she cries so easily. She cries sometimes till she's sick."

Mrs. Eliott's face had grown white; she trembled, and was dumb before the anguish of Anne's face.

But it was Anne who rose, and put her arms about the childless woman, and kissed and comforted her.

It was as if she had said: Thank God you never had one.