The small of her back. She wanted to laugh. All these elderly places she seemed to have about her--feet needing supporting on footstools, shoulders needing sheltering in shawls, backs needing propping with cushions.... But she didn’t laugh; she sat quiet, having nicely thanked Mr. Lambton, and on the whole did feel very comfortable like that, cushioned and foot-stooled, and no demands of any sort being made on her. It anyhow was peace. Down here she was still simply somebody’s mother, and it was a restful state. Except for the last three months she had continually in her life only been somebody’s something. She had begun by being somebody’s daughter--such a good little girl; she clearly remembered being a good little girl who gave no trouble, and played happily for hours together by herself. Then she passed straight from that to being somebody’s wife; again a great success, again doing everything that was expected of her and nothing that wasn’t. Then, when this phase was over, for twelve years she became exclusively somebody’s mother; but how had she not, when that too ended, stretched out her arms to the sun and cried out all to herself, ‘Now I’m going to be me!’ Three months she had had of it, three months of freedom in London; and friends had seemed to spring up like daisies under her feet, and Mrs. Mitcham was always making tea, and cigarette ends were always being emptied out of ash-trays, and some cousins she had in London, who had cropped up the minute she had got there, brought friends, and these friends instantly became her friends, and it was a holiday, the three months, a very happy little holiday as different as possible from anything she had ever known, in which every one she met was kind and gay, and nobody in any way restricted her movements, and when she wanted to be alone and go for her solitary enjoyments, such as music, which she best loved alone, or visits to Kew to see whether spring wasn’t anywhere about yet, she could be alone and go, and when she wanted to see people and talk, she could see them and talk, and there was no clash anywhere of some one else’s opposing tastes and wishes. A pleasant life. An amusing, independent, dignified small life; opening out before her with that other life of faithfully fulfilled duties and expectations at the back of her like a pillow to rest her conscience on. She hadn’t had time to arrange anything yet, but she certainly meant to do good as well as be happy, to find some form of charitable activity and throw herself into it. She wasn’t going to be idle, to drift into being one of those numerous ex-wives and mothers, unhappy specialists out of a job, who roam through their remaining years unprofitably conversing. All this had seemed to open out before her like a bland afternoon landscape, and what had she done? Behaved so idiotically that she had been forced to run away; and not only run, but not know in the least when she would be able to go back again.