‘Oh, I won’t profane Stephen’s study,’ said her mother, smiling at him. ‘I’ll only just come and tuck you up and then leave you to sleep. Thank you so much, Stephen,’ she added, turning to him; ‘it has been so good of you. I think your ideas are marvellous.’ But how many of them had her mother heard, Virginia wondered as, after a pressure of her husband’s shoulder which meant, ‘Be quick and come to the study and we can be by ourselves till tea,’ and a brief answering touch of her hand by his which meant that he’d follow her in five minutes, she and Catherine walked together down the long, beautiful old room, while Stephen laid his papers carefully in the wicker tray kept for the purpose. Very few, surely. Yet her mother spoke enthusiastically. It did slightly shake one’s belief in a mother who obviously slept most of the time ideas were being expounded to her, that she should, with that easy worldly over-emphasis Virginia hadn’t heard now for three months, that pleasant simulation of an enthusiasm which Virginia had always, ever since she began really to think, suspected couldn’t be quite real, declare them marvellous, on waking up. ‘I mustn’t be unfair, though,’ thought Virginia as they went into the study arm in arm--it was Catherine who had put her arm through Virginia’s. ‘After all, I explained things yesterday, so mother did know something of our ideas, even if she didn’t listen to-day. But <i>why</i> should she be so tired?’ ‘Didn’t you sleep well last night, mother?’ she asked, as Catherine arranged the cushions comfortably for her. ‘Not very well,’ said Catherine, turning a little red and looking oddly like a child caught out in ill behaviour, thought Virginia. How strange the way the tables of life turned, and how imperceptibly yet quickly one changed places. Here was her mother looking just as she was sure she herself used to look when she was caught out doing wrong things with the fruit or the jam. But why? Virginia couldn’t think why she should look so. ‘I shall sleep better when I’ve got more used to the bed,’ said Catherine, who was unnerved by the knowledge that Stephen’s conversation did inevitably dispose her to drowsiness, and that Virginia was on the verge of finding it out. Used to the bed. Virginia turned this expression over in her mind with grave eyes fixed on her mother, who was smoothing her skirt over her ankles. Used to the bed. It suggested infinity to Virginia. You couldn’t get used to a bed without practice in spending nights in it; you couldn’t get used to anything without many repetitions. How she wished she could be frank with her mother and ask her straight out how long she meant to stay. But could one ever be frank with either one’s mother or with one’s guest? And when both were combined! As a daughter she wasn’t able to say anything, as a hostess she wasn’t able to say anything, and as a daughter and a hostess rolled into one her muzzling was complete.