‘Mothers and sisters aren’t women--they’re merely relations,’ said Christopher; and from that time Lewes’s inquiries were less frequent and more gingerly, and mixed with anxiety. He was fond of his friend. He disliked the idea of possibly losing him. He seemed to him to be well on the way to being in love seriously; and love, as he had observed it, was a great sunderer of friendships. He heard him come in on the Friday night, and he heard him go, so unusually, into his room after that careful shutting of the front door, and he wondered. What was the woman doing to his friend? Making him unhappy already? She had made him more cautious already, and more silent; she had already come down between them like a deadening curtain. Lewes moved slightly in his chair, and went on with Donne, whom he was reading just then with intelligent appreciation tinged with surprise at the lasting quality of his passion for his wife; but he couldn’t, he found, attend to Donne as whole-heartedly as usual, for he was listening for any sounds from the next room, and his thoughts, even as his eyes read steadily down the page, were going round and round in a circle something like this: <i>Poor Chris. A widow. Got him in her clutches. And what a name. Cumfrit. Good God. Poor Chris.</i> ... From the next room there came sounds of walking up and down--careful walkings up and down, as of one desiring not to attract attention and yet impelled to walk--and Lewes’s thoughts went round in their circle faster and more emphatically than ever: <i>Poor Chris. A widow. Cumfrit. Good God.</i> ... The worst of it was, he thought, shutting up Donne with a bang and throwing him on the table, that on these occasions friends could only look on. There was nothing to be done whatever, except to watch as helplessly as at a death-bed. And without even, he said to himself, the hope, which sometimes supports such watchers, of a sure and glorious resurrection. His friend had to go through with it, and disappear out of his, Lewes’s, life; for never, he had observed, was any one the same friend exactly afterwards as before, whether the results of the adventure were happy or unhappy. <i>Poor Chris. A widow. Clutches.</i> ... The sounds of walking about presently left off. Lewes would have liked to have been able to look in and see for himself that his unfortunate and probably doomed friend was safely asleep, but he couldn’t do that; so he lit his pipe again and reached over for Donne and had another go at him, able to concentrate better, now that the footsteps had left off, but still with a slightly cocked ear. What was his surprise at breakfast next morning to see Christopher looking happy, and eating eggs and bacon with his usual simple relish. ‘Hullo,’ he couldn’t help saying, ‘you seem rather pleased with life.’ ‘I am. It’s raining,’ said Christopher. ‘So it is,’ said Lewes, glancing at the window; and he poured out his coffee in silence, because he was unable to see any connection.