She might be walking with Mrs. Kincaid, and Tony and his wife would come suddenly round a corner. And "Miss Westland" would look contemptuous, and Tony would start, and--and if she turned white, she'd loathe herself! "Did you? You must enliven the old lady? a good deal if she goes in for that sort of thing!" "Oh, it was stuffy indoors, and we thought that tea outside would be nicer. I daresay I'm better than no one; it must have been rather dull for her alone." "Is that the most you find to say of yourself--'better than no one'?" "Well, I haven't high spirits; some women are always laughing. We sit and read, or do needlework; or she talks about you, and----" "And you're bored? That's a mother's privilege, you know, to bore everybody about her son; you mustn't be hard on her." "I am interested; I think it's always interesting to hear of a man's work in a profession. And, then, Medicine was my father's." "Were you the only child?" "Yes. I wasn't much of a child, though! My mother died when I was very young, and I was taught a lot through that. The practice wasn't very good--very remunerative, that's to say--and if a girl's father isn't well off she becomes a woman early. If I had had a brother now----" "If you had had a brother--what?" "I was thinking it might have vmade a difference. Nothing particular. I don't suppose he'd have been of any monetary assistance; there wouldn't have been anything to give him a start with. But I should have liked a brother--one older than I am." "You'd have made the right kind of man of him, I believe." "I was thinking of what he'd have made of me. A brother must be such a help; a boy gets experience, and a girl has only instinct." "It's a pretty good thing to go on with." "It needs education, doctor, surely?" "It needs educating by a mother. Half the women who have children are no more fit to be mothers than----And one comes across old maids with just the qualities! Fine material allowed to waste!" The entrance to a cottage that they were passing stood open, and she could see into the parlour. There were teacups on the table, and a mug of wild flowers. On a garden-gate a child in a pink pinafore was slowly swinging. The brilliance of the day had subsided, and the town lay soft and yellow in the restfulness of sunset. A certain liquidity was assumed by the rugged street in the haze that hung over it; a touch of transparence gilded its flights of steps, the tiles of the house-tops, and the homely faces of the fisher-folk where they loitered before their doors. There a girl sat netting among the hollyhocks, withholding confession from the youth who lounged beside her, yet lifting at times to him a smile that had not been wakened by the net. The melody of the hour intensified the discord in the woman's soul. "Don't you think----" said Kincaid. He turned to her, strolling with his hands behind him. He talked to her, and she answered him, until they reached the house. CHAPTER VIII