‘I hate going to bed,’ she said suddenly. Catherine, who had been watching her sleepily, was surprised awake again--Virginia had sounded so natural. ‘Do you, darling?’ she asked. ‘Why?’ Virginia looked at her mother a moment, and then fetched the bedroom candles from the table they had been put ready on, the electric light being now cut off by Stephen’s wish at half-past ten each night. She gave Catherine her candle. ‘Didn’t you----’ she began. ‘Didn’t I what?’ ‘Hate going to bed when my father was away?’ ‘Oh. I see. No, I didn’t. I--I liked being alone.’ They stood looking at each other, their candles lighting up their faces. Catherine’s face was surprised; Virginia’s immensely earnest. ‘I think that’s very strange, mother,’ she said; and added after a silence, ‘You do understand, don’t you, that in all I’ve been saying about--about love, I only’--she blushed for the fourth time--‘mean <i>proper</i> love.’ ‘Oh, quite, darling,’ Catherine hastened to assure her. ‘Husbands.’ And Catherine, not used to bedroom candles, held hers crooked and dropped some grease on the carpet, and Virginia had the utmost difficulty in strangling an exclamation. Stephen did so much dislike grease on the carpets. XIII Stephen came back by the first train next morning, suppressing his excitement as he got out of the car and on the doorstep saw Virginia, standing there as usual, in her simple morning frock and fresh neatness, waiting to welcome him home. Outwardly he looked just a sober, middle-aged cleric, giving his wife a perfunctory kiss while the servants brought in his things; inwardly he was thirty at the sight of her, and twenty at the touch of her. She, suppressing in her turn all signs of joy, received his greeting with a grave smile, and they both at once went into his study, and shutting the door fell into each other’s arms. ‘My wife,’ whispered Stephen. ‘My husband,’ whispered Virginia. It was their invariable greeting at this blissful Monday morning moment of reunion. No one would have recognised Stephen who saw him alone with Virginia; no one would have recognised Virginia who saw her alone with Stephen. Such are the transformations of love. Catherine kept out of the way; she went tactfully for a walk. They were to themselves till lunch-time, and could pour out everything each had been thinking and feeling and saying and doing since they parted such ages ago, on Saturday. Unfortunately this time Virginia had something to pour out which wasn’t going to give Stephen pleasure. She put it off as long as she could, but he, made quick by love, soon felt there was something in the background of her talk, and drawing his finger gently over her forehead, which usually was serene with purest joy, said, ‘A little pucker. I see the tiniest pucker. What is it, Virginia love?’ ‘Mother,’ said Virginia. ‘Mother? My mother?’ Stephen couldn’t believe it. His mother causing puckers? ‘No. Mine. She’s come.’ ‘Come here?’