In here it was cool and calm, soft and blurred with the smoke of their cigarettes. Frances Carr left them to talk, telling them not to be late. When she had gone, Pamela said "I thought you were still down at Windover, Nan." "Left it on Saturday.... Mother and Grandmama had been there a week. I couldn't stick it any longer. Mother was outrageously jealous, of course." "Neville and Grandmama? Poor mother." "Oh yes, poor mother. But it gets on my nerves. Neville's an angel. I can't think how she sticks it. For that matter, I never know how she puts up with Rodney's spoilt fractiousness.... And altogether life was a bit of a strain ... no peace. And I wanted some peace and solitude, to make up my mind in." "Are you making it up now?" Pamela, mildly interested, presumed it was a man. "Trying to. It isn't made yet. That's why I roam about your horrible slums in the dark. I'm considering; getting things into focus. Seeing them all round." "Well, that sounds all right." "Pam." Nan leant forward abruptly, her cigarette between two brown fingers. "Are you happy? Do you enjoy your life?" Pamela withdrew, lightly, inevitably, behind guards. "Within reason, yes. When committees aren't too tiresome, and the accounts balance, and...." "Oh, give me a straight answer, Pam. You dependable, practical people are always frivolous about things that matter. Are you happy? Do you feel right-side-up with life?" "In the main--yes." Pamela was more serious this time. "One's doing one's job, after all. And human beings are interesting." "But I've got that too. My job, and human beings.... Why do I feel all tossed about, like a boat on a choppy sea? Oh, I know life's furiously amusing and exciting--of course it is. But I want something solid. You've got it, somehow." Nan broke off and thought "It's Frances Carr she's got. That's permanent. That goes on. Pamela's anchored. All these people I have--these men and women--they're not anchors, they're stimulants, and how different that is!" They looked at each other in silence. Pamela said then, "You don't look well, child." "Oh--" Nan threw her cigarette end impatiently into the grate. "I'm all right. I'm tired, and I've been thinking too much. That never suits me.... Thanks, Pam. You've helped me to make up my mind. I like you, Pam," she added dispassionately, "because you're so gentlewomanly. You don't ask questions, or pry. Most people do." "Surely not. Not most decent people." "Most people aren't decent. You think they are. You've not lived in my set--nor in Rosalind's. You're still fresh from Oxford--stuck all over with Oxford manners and Oxford codes. You don't know the raddled gossip who fishes for your secrets and then throws them about for fun, like tennis balls." "I know Rosalind, thank you, Nan." "Oh, Rosalind's not the only one, though she'll do. Anyhow I've trapped you into saying an honest and unkind thing about her, for once; that's something. Wish you weren't such a dear old fraud, Pammie."