She was feeling suddenly in spirits: it was the sight of Christopher had done it: the perfect assurance that they were going to live under the same roof again. She would have betted all she possessed and her immortal soul on the chance that he would not take up with the Wannop girl. And it would have been betting on a certainty! . . . But she had had no idea what their relations were to be, after the war. At first she had thought that they had parted for good when she had gone off from their flat at four o'clock in the morning. It had seemed logical. But, gradually, in retreat at Birkenhead, in the still, white, nun's room, doubt had come upon her. It was one of the disadvantages of living as they did that they seldom spoke their thoughts. But that was also at times an advantage. She had certainly meant their parting to be for good. She had certainly raised her voice in giving the name of her station to the taxi-man with the pretty firm conviction that he would hear her; and she had been pretty well certain that he would take it as a sign that the breath had gone out of their union. . . . Pretty certain. But not quite! . . . She would have died rather than write to him; she would die, now, rather than give any inkling that she wanted them to live under the same roof again. . . . She said to herself: "Is he writing to that girl?" And then: "No! . . . I'm certain that he isn't." . . . She had had all his letters stopped at the flat, except for a few circulars that she let dribble through to him, so that he might imagine that all his correspondence was coming through. From the letters to him that she did read she was pretty sure that he had given no other address than the flat in Gray's Inn. . . . But there had been no letters from Valentine Wannop. . . . Two from Mrs. Wannop, two from his brother Mark, one from Port Scatho, one or two from brother officers and some officials chits. . . . She said to herself that, if there _had_ been any letters from that girl, she would have let all his letters go through, including the girl's. . . . Now she was not so certain that she would have. In the glass she saw Christopher marching woodenly out of the hotel, along the path that led from door to door behind her. . . . It came to her with extraordinary gladness--the absolute conviction that he was not corresponding with Miss Wannop. The absolute conviction. . . . If he had come alive enough to do that he would have looked different. She did not know how he would have looked. But different . . . Alive! Perhaps self-conscious: perhaps . . . satisfied . . . For some time the major had been grumbling about his wrongs. He said that he followed her about all day, like a lap-dog, and got nothing for it. Now she wanted him to be conciliatory. She said she wanted to have a man on show as escort. Well then, an escort got something. . . . At just this moment he was beginning again with: