"It's the whole idea," she said, hotly. "And I detest all these Labour people. Vile creatures.... Of course I don't mean people like Rodney--the University men. They're merely amateurs. But these dreadful Trades Union men, with their walrus moustaches.... Why can't they shave, like other people, if they want to be taken for gentlemen?" Neville told her, chaffingly, that she was a mass of prejudice. Grandmama, who had fallen asleep and dropped the London Mercury onto the floor, diverted the conversation by waking up and remarking that it seemed a less interesting number than usual on the whole, though some of the pieces of poetry were pretty, and that Mrs. Hilary ought not to lie under the open window. Mrs. Hilary, who was getting worse, admitted that she had better be in bed. "I hope," said Grandmama, "that it will be a lesson to you, dear, not to stay in the water so long again, even if you do want to show off before your daughter-in-law." Grandmama, who disliked Rosalind, usually called her to Mrs. Hilary "your daughter-in-law," saddling her, so to speak, with the responsibility for Gilbert's ill-advised marriage. To her grandchildren she would refer to Rosalind as "your sister-in-law," or "poor Gilbert's wife." "The bathe was worth it," said Mrs. Hilary, swinging up to high spirits again. "It was a glorious bathe. But I _have_ got rheumatics." So Neville stayed on at The Gulls that night, to massage her mother's joints, and Pamela and Nan went back to Hoxton and Chelsea by the evening train. Pamela had supper, as usual, with Frances Carr, and Nan with Barry Briscoe, and they both talked and talked, about all the things you don't talk of in families but only to friends. 7 Neville meanwhile was saying to Grandmama in the drawing-room at The Gulls, after Mrs. Hilary had gone to bed, "I wish mother could get some regular interest or occupation. She would be much happier. Are there no jobs for elderly ladies in the Bay?" "As many in the Bay," said Grandmama, up in arms for the Bay, "as anywhere else. Sick-visiting, care committees, boys' and girls' classes, and so on. I still keep as busy as I am able, as you know." Neville did know. "If mother could do the same...." "Mother can't. She's never been a rector's wife, as I have, and she doesn't care for such jobs. Mother never did care for any kind of work really, even as a girl. She married when she was nineteen and found the only work she was fitted for and interested in. That's over, and there's no other she can turn to. It's common enough, child, with women. They just have to make the best of it, and muddle through somehow till the end." "You were different, Grandmama, weren't you? I mean, you were never at a loss for things to do." Grandmama's thin, delicate face hardened for a moment into grim lines.