That cooing, placid voice never lost its sweetness. It was the same when it rained, when the wind howled for days, when the money was shorter than usual, when Eve’s drawings were returned by unsympathetic magazines. Mrs. Carfax underlined the adjectives in her letters, and had a little proverbial platitude for every catastrophe, were it a broken soap dish or a railway smash. “Patience is a virtue, my dear.” “Rome was not built in a day.” “The world is not helped by worry.” Mrs. Carfax had an annuity of £100 a year, and Eve made occasional small sums by her paintings. They were poor, poor with that respectable poverty that admits of no margins and no adventures. Mrs. Carfax was supremely contented. She prayed nightly that she might be spared to keep a home for Eve, never dreaming that the daughter suffered from fits of bitter restlessness when anything seemed better than this narrow and prospectless tranquillity. Mrs. Carfax had never been young. She had accepted everything, from her bottle onwards, with absolute passivity. She had been a passive child, a passive wife, a passive widow. Life had had no gradients, no gulfs and pinnacles. There were no injustices and no sorrows, save, of course, those arranged by an all-wise Providence. No ideals, save those in the Book of Common Prayer; no passionate strivings; no divine discontents. She just cooed, brought out a soft platitude, and went on with her knitting. Eve entered the house to put her things away, and to tell Nellie, the infant maid, to take tea out into the garden. “Take tea out, Nellie.” “Yes, miss. There ain’t no cake.” “I thought I told you to bake one.” “Yes, miss. There ain’t no baking powder.” “Oh, very well. I’ll order some. Put a little jam out.” “There only be gooseberry, miss.” “Then we’ll say gooseberry.” Eve returned to the garden in time to hear the purr of a motor-car in the main road. The car stopped at the end of the lane. A door banged, and a figure in black appeared beyond the gate. It was the Cantertons’ car that had stopped at the end of the lane, and it was Mrs. Canterton who opened the gate, smiling and nodding at Mrs. Carfax. Gertrude Canterton had paid a first formal call some months ago, leaving in Eve’s mind the picture of a very expeditious woman who might whirl down on you in an aeroplane, make a few remarks on the weather, and then whirl off again. “Please don’t get up! Please don’t get up! I mustn’t stay three minutes. Isn’t the weather exquisite. Ah, how do you do, Miss Carfax?” She extended a hand with an affected flick of the wrist, smiling all the while, and wriggling her shoulders. “Eve, fetch another chair, dear.” “Oh, please don’t bother!” “We are just going to have tea, Mrs. Canterton.” Eve gave her mother a warning look, but Mrs. Carfax never noticed other people’s faces. “Tell Nellie, dear.”