She began to long for companionship. Since her estrangement from George, the Trants’ household had of course been barred to her. This meant the loss of Helen’s benign, sweetening companionship. There was something in Helen.... Catherine missed those Sunday teas at “Highfield.” She missed Mrs. Trant’s anxious affability, Mr. Trant’s bluff hooliganism (which she detested), and Helen’s smile, aloof yet full of serene understanding. She missed even those lingering homeward strolls with George, the comfortable feel of his arm linked in hers, and the faint tobacco aroma of his clothes. Undoubtedly she missed his companionship and his passing flashes of brilliance. Once she composed a letter to him.... We can’t be lovers, but why shouldn’t we be friends? Surely we’re capable of it. I for one am desperately lonely.... But understand, there is not the slightest prospect of anything further than friendship developing.... But friendship I should be glad to have.... She tore it up as soon as she had read it over. It was no good. He would not understand.... Often in the midst of applause at her concerts she would think the awful thought: I am the loneliest person of you all. You who are envying me have friends and companions. I have none. I am utterly to be pitied. And sometimes as she strolled along the tree-hung suburban roads the idea of suicide would come before her calmly and without effort. It was one solution of the difficulty. It was one she did not propose to take. For one thing, life was very precious. And for another, she had not the courage.... But suicide always took the position in her mind of a possible and perfectly feasible proposition. She was not hopelessly prejudiced against it.... She would undoubtedly have killed herself but for music. Music gave her courage. She felt that fame as a pianist would compensate for utter unhappiness and loneliness. She had always the feeling: If I am subject to some great trial, if I am miserable and unhappy, I can put my misery and unhappiness into my playing. If my heart is ever on the point of breaking, I shall play Chopin’s Nocturnes the better for it. My misery I shall not have to bear alone: the whole world (or a large part of it) will bear it with me. The miseries of other folk are no less intense than mine, but they are suffered in silence and forgotten. Mine will be bequeathed to the world. Even my loneliness will not be so tragic when all the world is sharing it with me. _I_ shall suffer, but thousands will throb, not with sympathy, but with an infinitely greater thing--my own agony made real in their hearts. I shall be immortal even if the only thing of me that lasts is what I have suffered....