"I like her; she's rather a pet. And I like Hugh's Grannie too, she's frightfully nice. I do hope she likes me because I know she loves Hugh and I'd hate to come between them. It's only Hugh's mother I'm frightened of, though I like her too. You know, sooner or later I'm bound to shock her. She thinks I'm a child, and Hugh and I are a pretty little couple and so on, and if I said something was bloody--and I might easily, even with her there--she'd have a fit." "You probably will give her a shock some time. She's absolutely wrapped in illusions as far as I can see, especially about her children." "I know she is," Jessica sighed, "you know, Drusilla, I'd like to have a good many children, especially boys I think, but I'd rather drown them at birth than live on them as Mrs. Greene does." "How do you mean?" Jessica relapsed into vagueness. "I don't know," she said, "only she seems so mixed up with them somehow, and Hugh is so utterly exquisite when you think of him as an isolated identity." "He is rather, but you'd better not think of him as an isolated identity; he isn't ever likely to be, he's part of a very compact family and you'll be part of it too." "I know, I'll have to get used to it, and it doesn't really matter. I'd swallow a clan of Jews from Whitechapel to get Hugh, if I had to." The hall clock struck seven. "Haven't you finished fussing over the presents yet," said Drusilla. "You must have spaced out the coffee cups by now, and I do think you ought to go back to bed again for a bit." "All right, I'll come now. The maids will be up in a minute, and we'd better creep back now before they hear us." They stole quietly upstairs and Jessica got into bed again. "Stay a minute, Drusilla, sit on the bed and let's talk," she said, and immediately fell silent. Drusilla waited. "Well, what about it?" she asked at last. "I don't know," said Jessica seriously, "there really is nothing to say at all. Here I am sort of suspended in mid-air between never-been-married, and never-again-be-unmarried, and I'm not sure that I'll ever feel anything much lovelier than this, just waiting till I see Hugh this afternoon at 2.30 exactly." "Darling, you're all agog. It is nice. I wish I could fall in love like that." "I used to think you were a little fond of Stephen Wilcox, weren't you?" asked Jessica curiously, "but don't say so if you'd rather not; it's an indelicate question." She blushed furiously, but Drusilla answered quite unmoved. "Well, yes, I was rather, but one night at a dance he kissed me a lot, and got very worked up, and it struck me as just funny and rather clumsy. I didn't have the faintest thrill, so I knew it wouldn't do."