To begin with, she felt very tired and weary. Of course she had done a good deal that day. She had every reason to be physically tired. But it was not altogether physical tiredness. She felt like a child who has been looking forward to something for a long time, and is disappointed because its expectations are not realized. And again she felt relieved, as one who has been harbouring a vague dread and finds that the worst is not half so bad as was thought. And again she felt sorry, as if both her disappointment and her relief were things to be regretted and to feel ashamed of. And somewhere--vaguely--subconsciously--what was the thought that came to her? A revolutionary thought, a thought that marked an epoch in her life and development. Nothing less than the thought that the things he and she had been discussing, the questions that at one time had seemed the most momentous in her life, were now become by the sad process of time stale, unmeaning, and out of date. Of historic and achæological interest, maybe, but not living things as she had expected them to be living. She had expected to be immensely moved, immensely stirred by this conversation with him. She had expected it so confidently that she had been stirred at the thought of being stirred. She had tuned herself in readiness for a great conflict. And now the conflict had begun, had lasted and was over. She had not been stirred. Not that the blows had been light. It was something in her that gave her a new invulnerability, a strange imperviousness to blows. Her expectations, her dreads, her excitement, her preparations for conflict, all had been for nothing. And now that she realized that they had been for nothing she felt the effect of them--they made her tired, weary, worn out. The tension snapped. Vaguely she felt sorry that she was not suffering more acutely: vaguely she felt that her invulnerability was purchased at a great price. But try as she would she could not help but feel that her conversation with him had been a futile disinterment of dead bones.... She was not hurt. But she was tired--weary--as after a successful and dangerous operation. They both felt that they had said all that need be said. On the way home scarcely a remark passed between them, except once or twice when he called her attention to the scenery. He said: “The tide is coming in fast now. It comes in by inches as you watch it.” She replied: “Yes,” but she did not think what she was saying. When they got back to “Seahill,” he disappeared into the garage to prepare the car for use. She was left for a few moments with Helen. Their conversation (lasting for two minutes) was full of amazing things. Helen began it. “Well,” she said, “what do you think of him?” “He’s very clever.” “Yes,” agreed Helen, surprisingly, “and like all clever men he is rather stupid. He’s so stupid that he thinks I don’t understand him.” Pause. Catherine was too much astonished to reply.