“And the Malletts don’t marry,” Henrietta said. “Aunt Caroline and Aunt Sophia and Aunt Rose, and now me. There’s something in us that can’t be satisfied. It was the same with my father, only it took him the other way.” “I didn’t know he was married more than once. Nobody tells me things.” “Charles, dear, you’re very stupid. He was only married once in a church.” “Oh, I see.” “And if I did marry, I should be like him.” She turned to him and put her face close to his. “Unfaithful,” she pronounced clearly. “Oh, well, Henrietta, you would still be you.” She stepped backwards, shocked. “Charles, wouldn’t you mind?” “Not so much,” he said stolidly, “as doing without you altogether.” “And the other day you said you need never do that because”—she tapped his waistcoat—“because I’m here!” He showed a face she had never seen before. “You seem to think I’m not made of flesh and blood!” he cried. “You’re wanton, Henrietta, simply wanton!” And he rushed out of the room. She heard the front door bang; she saw his hat and stick, lying where he had put them; she smiled at them politely and then, sinking to the floor beside the fender, she let out a little moan of despair and delight. The fire chuckled and chattered and she leaned forward, her face near the bars. “Stop talking for a minute! I want to tell you something. There’s nobody else to tell. Listen! I’m in love with him now.” She nodded her head. “Yes, with him. I know it’s ridiculous; but it’s true. Did you hear? You can laugh if you like. I don’t care. I’m in love with him. Oh, dear!” She circled her neck with her hands as though she must clasp something, and it would have been too silly to fondle his ugly hat. And he would remember he had forgotten it; he would come back. She dared not see him. “I love him,” she cried out, “too much to want to see him!” She paused, astonished. “I suppose that’s how he feels about me. How wonderful!” She looked round at the furniture, so still and unmoved by the happy bewilderment in which she found herself. The piano was mute; the lamps burned steadily; the chair in which Charles had sat was unconscious of its privilege; even the fire’s flames had subsided; and she was intensely, madly, joyously alive. “It’s too much,” she said, “too much!” And for the first time she was ashamed of her episode with Francis Sales. “Playing at love,” she whispered. But Charles would be coming back and, tiptoeing as though he might hear her from the street, she picked up his hat and stick and laid them neatly on the step outside the front door. She slept with the profundity of her happiness and descended to breakfast in a dream. Only the sight of Rose’s tired face reminded her that Aunt Sophia was ill. She had had a bad night, but she was better. “She’s not going to die, too, is she?” Henrietta asked, and she had a sad vision of Aunt Rose living all alone in Nelson Lodge. “She may live for a long time, but the doctor says she may die at any moment.”