Then the sitting-room clock ticked for a space, while Mrs. Wing communed with herself. And Charles, gazing out into the park, waiting for his friend, thought how it was that a young woman's work--even an extraordinary young woman like Mary--always subtly lacked just that ultimate touch of grim seriousness which justified the "fierce hackings away" of a man. For, as an abstract truth, there was positively no such thing as a Permanent Spinster: and women who were not spinsters, and normally desired Paulies and Neddies of their own, could not possibly fulfill their longings without serious complications to themselves, then and thenceforward. It was no human or escapable "tyranny" that had made Woman, to this degree, to her glory or her disaster, forever the victim of her sex: and, by the same token, fixed the final responsibility for the economic support of the family upon the shoulders of the predestined and uncompromised provider, Man.... Yes, then and thenceforward ... Could you, for example, imagine Mary Wing--who had had chances to marry before now, who might reasonably marry at any time--could you picture Mary packing off her three little darlings to a crèche every morning, that she might go and grow her soul at a desk somewhere? Maybe so; but he wondered.... He was thinking whether he could contrive to discuss the crèche and endowment arguments in his novel--for of course you could make a story carry just a certain amount of "solid stuff," and only dreary prigs of readers would lie still while you tried to feed them forcibly with a spoon--when all at once Mrs. Wing, near by, was heard to strike her hands together, with a little ejaculation. "Oh, Mr. Garrott! I do believe Mary's at the High School all the time!" That made the thoughtful visitor turn swiftly enough. "At the _High School_?" "It's so stupid of me!" she explained, with some relief, it seemed. "I've just remembered. You know, she never cleared her papers and things out of her office closet there, and it got on her mind when she was sick. And to-day, when she came in from school, she told me she had arranged with Mr. Geddie over the telephone--the man who has her office now--to go and attend to it this afternoon. Yes, that's it--I'm sure!" "Oh!" said Charles, not a little perplexed. "And then, you mean--she decided to go to the Flowers' instead?" "Well, to go there first--I suppose. Donald came in just as she finished lunch--to talk with her about something. Then, when he had gone, Mary told me she was going down to see Angela. It was all rather unexpected--and somehow the High School went out of my mind completely." "But I hope nothing's happened?" he said quickly. "Well--I don't know that there has."