‘I’m tired,’ she explained rather fretfully in answer to Stephen’s look of surprise; and she frowned as she turned her back abruptly. But Wanda shied away from the brandy as a frightened horse will shy from fire; she drank two large glasses of lemonade—an extremist she was in all things, this Wanda. Quite soon she announced that she must go home to bed, because of her latest picture which required every ounce of strength she had in her; but before she went she said eagerly to Stephen: ‘Do let me show you the Sacré Cœur. You have seen it of course, but only as a tourist; that is not really seeing it at all, you must come there with me.’ ‘All right,’ agreed Stephen. When Jamie and Barbara had departed in their turn, Stephen took Mary into her arms: ‘Dearest . . . has it been a fairly nice Christmas after all?’ she inquired almost timidly. Mary kissed her: ‘Of course it’s been a nice Christmas.’ Then her youthful face suddenly changed in expression, the grey eyes growing hard, the mouth resentful: ‘Damn that woman for what she’s done to us, Stephen—the insolence of it! But I’ve learnt my lesson; we’ve got plenty of friends without Lady Massey and Agnes, friends to whom we’re not moral lepers.’ And she laughed, a queer, little joyless laugh. Stephen flinched, remembering Brockett’s warning. 2 Wanda’s chastened and temperate mood persisted for several weeks, and while it was on her she clung like a drowning man to Stephen, haunting the house from morning until night, dreading to be alone for a moment. It cannot be said that Stephen suffered her gladly, for now with the New Year she was working hard on a series of articles and short stories; unwilling to visualize defeat, she began once again to sharpen her weapon. But something in Wanda’s poor efforts to keep sober, in her very dependence, was deeply appealing, so that Stephen would put aside her work, feeling loath to desert the unfortunate creature. Several times they made a long pilgrimage on foot to the church of the Sacré Cœur; just they two, for Mary would never go with them; she was prejudiced against Wanda’s religion. They would climb the steep streets with their flights of steps, grey streets, grey steps leading up from the city. Wanda’s eyes would always be fixed on their goal—pilgrim eyes they would often seem to Stephen. Arrived at the church she and Wanda would stand looking down between the tall, massive columns of the porch, on a Paris of domes and mists, only half revealed by the fitful sunshine. The air would seem pure up there on the height, pure and tenuous as a thing of the spirit. And something in that mighty temple of faith, that amazing thrust towards the sublime, that silent yet articulate cry of a nation to its God, would awaken a response in Stephen, so that she would seem to be brushing the hem of an age-old and rather terrible mystery—the eternal mystery of good and evil.