Ingeborg's mother had found the sofa as other people find salvation. She was not ill. She had simply discovered in it a refuge and a very present help in all the troubles and turmoil of life, and in especial a shield and buckler when it came to dealing with the Bishop. It is not easy for the married, she had found when first casting about for one, to hit on a refuge from each other that shall be honourable to both. In a moment of insight she perceived the sofa. Here was a blameless object that would separate her entirely from duties and responsibilities of every sort. It was respectable; it was unassailably effective; it was not included in the Commandments. All she had to do was to cling to it, and nobody could make her do or be anything. She accordingly got on to it and had stayed there ever since, mysteriously frail, an object of solicitude and sympathy, a being before whose helplessness the most aggressive or aggrieved husband must needs be helpless, too. And she had gradually acquired the sofa look, and was now very definitely a slightly plaintive but persistently patient Christian lady. "Is that you, Ingeborg?" she said, turning her head. "Yes, mother," said Ingeborg, hesitating in spite of herself on the threshold. She looked round anxiously, but the Bishop was not lurking anywhere in the big room. "Come in, dear, and shut the door. You see the windows are open." Judith glanced up at her a moment from her tea-making and did not move. Even in the midst of her terrors Ingeborg was astonished, after not having seen it for a while, at her loveliness. She seemed to have taken the sodden greys of the afternoon, the dulness and the gathering dusk, and made out of their gloom the one perfect background for her beauty. "We thought you would have written," said Mrs. Bullivant, putting her cheek in a position convenient for the kiss that was to be applied to it. "I--I telegraphed," said Ingeborg, applying the kiss. "Yes, dear, but only about your train." "I--thought that was enough." "But, Ingeborg dear, such a great occasion. One of _the_ great occasions of life. We did expect a little notice, didn't we, Judith?" "Notice?" said Ingeborg faintly. "Your father was wounded, dear. He thought it showed so little real love for your parents and your sister." "But--" said Ingeborg, looking from one to the other. "We wrote to you at once--directly we knew. Didn't we, Judith?" "Of course," said Judith. Ingeborg stood flushing and turning pale. Had one of the Dent's Tour people somehow found out where she lived and written about her engagement and the impossible had happened and they weren't going to mind? Was it possible? Did they know? And were taking it like this? If only she had called at her aunt's house on the way to Paddington and got the letters--what miserable hours of terror she would have been spared!