"I do so want to talk to you," Lilian went on. "I’ve had nobody to talk to for--I mean like you. D’you know, Felix would have been alive now if it hadn’t been for me." She burst into tears, and then, recovering, began an interminable detailed recital of events on the Riviera, coupled with a laudation of Felix. She revelled in it, and was shameless, well aware that Gertrude would defend her against herself. The relief which she felt was intense. At the end of half an hour, when the torrent had slackened, Gertrude said: "I really think I’d better be going now. What time would you like me to come to-night? I’m quite free because I’m not taking night duty this week. It’s Milly’s week." And as she was leaving she turned back rather nervously to the bed. "D’you mind me suggesting one thing? I wouldn’t have you over-tire yourself; but if you could just show yourself at the office, I feel it would be such a good thing for all of us. The girls would understand then who the new employer is. Some of them are very stupid, you know. If you could just show yourself--a quarter of an hour. It’s for your own sake, dear." "As I am? I mean--you know----" "Why not?" "But would they----" "Of course not," blandly and firmly decided Gertrude, who had been brought up in Islington, where the enterprise of procreation proceeds on an important scale and in a straightforward spirit. Strange that in Gertrude’s virginal mentality such realism could coexist with such innocent ingenuousness! But it was so. When Gertrude had left, Lilian opened the parcel. It was from Dr. Samson and contained two books recommended and promised by him about preparing for motherhood, and motherhood, and cognate matters. The mere titles of the chapters entranced her. IV The New Employer Appreciably less than a year had passed since she went down those office stairs, thrust out by the implacable jealousy of Miss Grig, and yet in that short time the stairs had shrunk and become most painfully dingy. The sight of them saddened her; she wondered how it was that their squalor had not affected her before. She felt acutely sorry for the girl named Lilian Share who in the previous autumn used easily to run up them from bottom to top, urged by the consciousness of being late. Now she had to take the second flight very slowly. The door opened as she reached it, and Gertie Jackson emerged to usher her in. A dozen pairs of ears had been listening for her arrival. The doors of both the large and the small rooms were ajar, and she had glimpses of watching faces as she went with Gertrude into the principal’s room. She was intensely nervous and self-conscious. Gertrude explained that Miss Grig had installed her in the principal’s room months ago, and Lilian said that that was quite right, and Gertrude said that she had hoped Lilian would approve.