“They were ducks, dear,” laughed Etta, taking Clementina’s grim face between her dainty hands. “Ducks like you.” Clementina suffered the caress with a wry mouth. “I think you’re getting better,” she said. “And I’m jolly glad of it. To have one young idiot on my hands ill with congestion of the lungs and another ill with congestion of the heart—both at the same time—is more than I bargained for. I suppose you think I’m a sort of Sister of Charity. Why don’t you do as your father tells you and go down to your Aunt What’s-her-name in Somersetshire?” Etta made a grimace. “Aunt Elmira would drive me crazy. You’re much more wholesome for me. And as for father”—she tossed her pretty head—“he has to do what he’s told.” So Etta remained in town, her convalescence synchronising with that of Tommy Burgrave. Clementina began to find time to breathe and to make up arrears of work. As soon as Tommy was able to take his walks abroad, and Etta to seek distraction in the society of her acquaintance, Clementina shut herself up in her studio, forbidding the young people to come near her, and for a week painted the livelong day. At last, one morning two piteous letters were smuggled almost simultaneously into the studio. “. . . I haven’t seen you for months and months. Do let me come to dinner to-night. . . . Tommy.” “. . . Oh darling, DO come to tea this afternoon. . . . Etta.” “I shall go and paint in the Sahara,” cried Clementina. But she seized two dirty scraps of paper and scrawled on them: “Lord, yes, child, come to dinner.” “Lord, yes, child, I’ll come to tea.” and having folded them crookedly despatched them to her young friends. It was during this visit of Clementina to the fairy bower in Cheyne Walk that Etta informed her of her intention of becoming a hospital nurse. “Lord have mercy upon us!” cried Clementina. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” said Etta. “The idea is preposterous,” replied Clementina. “What need have you to work for your living?” “I want to do something useful in the world.” “You’ll do much better by remaining ornamental,” said Clementina. “It’s only when a woman is as ugly as sin and as poor as charity that she need be useful; that’s to say while she’s unmarried. When she’s married she has got as much as she can do to keep her husband and children in order. A girl like you with plenty of money and the devil’s own prettiness has got to stay at home and fulfil her destiny.” Etta, sitting on the window seat, looked at the Thames, seen in patches of silver through the fresh greenery of the Embankment trees. “I know what you’re thinking of, dear,” she said, with the indulgent solemnity of the Reverend Mother of a Convent, “but I shall never marry.” “Rubbish,” said Clementina. “I’ve made up my mind, quite made up my mind.”