She would say: ‘I seem to have found two new children,’ and Stephen, who was in the mood to feel touched, grew quite attached to this ageing woman. Agnes was engaged to a Colonel Fitzmaurice who would probably join them that autumn in Paris. If he did so they must all foregather at once, she insisted—he greatly admired Stephen’s book and had written that he was longing to meet her. But Lady Massey went further than this in her enthusiastic proffers of friendship—Stephen and Mary must stay with her in Cheshire; she was going to give a house party at Branscombe Court for Christmas; they must certainly come to her for Christmas. Mary, who seemed elated at the prospect, was for ever discussing this visit with Stephen: ‘What sort of clothes shall I need, do you think? Agnes says it’s going to be quite a big party. I suppose I’ll want a few new evening dresses?’ And one day she inquired: ‘Stephen, when you were younger, did you ever go to Ascot or Goodwood?’ Ascot and Goodwood, just names to Stephen; names that she had despised in her youth, yet which now seemed not devoid of importance since they stood for something beyond themselves—something that ought to belong to Mary. She would pick up a copy of _The Tatler_ or _The Sketch_, which Lady Massey received from England, and turning the pages would stare at the pictures of securely established, self-satisfied people—Miss this or that sitting on a shooting stick, and beside her the man she would shortly marry; Lady so-and-so with her latest offspring; or perhaps some group at a country house. And quite suddenly Stephen would feel less assured because in her heart she must envy these people. Must envy these commonplace men and women with their rather ridiculous shooting sticks; their smiling fiancés; their husbands; their wives; their estates, and their well cared for, placid children. Mary would sometimes look over her shoulder with a new and perhaps rather wistful interest. Then Stephen would close the paper abruptly: ‘Let’s go for a row on the lake,’ she might say, ‘it’s no good wasting this glorious evening.’ But then she would remember the invitation to spend Christmas with Lady Massey in Cheshire, and would suddenly start to build castles in the air; supposing that she herself bought a small place near Branscombe Court—near these kind new friends who seemed to have grown so fond of Mary? Mary would also have her thoughts, would be thinking of girls like Agnes Massey for whom life was tranquil, easy and secure; girls to whom the world must seem blessedly friendly. And then, with a little stab of pain, she would suddenly remember her own exile from Morton. After such thoughts as these she must hold Stephen’s hand, must always sit very close to Stephen. 3