But there is always something artificial in the friendship of women. It is a harness lightly worn and has a faint suggestion of carnival about it. Flowers must bedeck the harness, flowers of propinquity, common interests, ambitions, tastes, mutualities of all kinds in their particular sphere. Above all, a dissimilar taste in men. Nature designed them for one purpose only, to carry on the race and guard it in childhood, and if Mind today laughs at her ingenuous plan, she has her subtle revenges. When the flowers wither the harness falls off. Elsie realized this with a sigh. She knew that she had a certain nobility of character and lofty ideals, and had believed they would survive any test. But they seemed to have staggered under the first hard blow, and cowered aside before a healthy desire for vengeance. Gita had nearly killed the man she loved and she should not have her almost equally beloved brother. She told herself she had idealized that girl; blinded by her novelty and personality; and now for the first time saw her for what she was. Her instinct of self-protection was strong and if she were to retain her self-respect she must not hate but despise Gita. Better to acknowledge herself a poor judge of character (when glamoured) than admit she was incapable of true friendship. Moreover, knowing the latent fierceness and ruthlessness in Gita’s nature, she felt she was quite honest in her belief that the shooting had been deliberate; moreover, that if Gita had never met Geoffrey it would not have happened. . . . Sooner or later some man was bound to have demolished that dyke that circumstance had built between conscious intelligence and sex, and an unkind Fate had decreed it should be Geoffrey. Fine wife for an ambitious hard-working surgeon, always on the lookout for some new kink in the human anatomy he could discover and call by his name. When a woman like that woke up she’d whirl to the other extreme. Have lovers. Snap her fingers at the world. Ruin her husband’s life and career. She’d ruined one man. Quite enough. Even if Eustace accepted his release and came to herself on the rebound—but she was in no mood to indulge in day-dreams. Happiness was not in the air!