“And suppose he did come to love me a little,” Mrs. Aldwinkle went on, taking a perverse delight in tormenting herself in every possible way, “suppose he should come to love me just a little for what I am and think and do—should come to love me because, to begin with, I love him and admire his work, and because I understand what an artist feels and can sympathise with him—suppose all that, wouldn’t he be repelled at the same time by the fact that I’m old?” She peered into the mirror. “My face looks terribly old,” she said. “No, no,” protested Irene encouragingly. “He’d be disgusted,” Mrs. Aldwinkle went on. “It would be enough to drive him away even if he were attracted in some other way.” She sighed profoundly. The tears trickled slowly down her sagging cheeks. “Don’t talk like that, Aunt Lilian,” Irene implored her. “Don’t talk like that.” She felt the tears coming into her own eyes. At that moment she would have done anything, given anything to make Aunt Lilian happy. She threw her arms round Mrs. Aldwinkle’s neck and kissed her. “Don’t be unhappy,” she whispered. “Don’t think any more about it. What does it matter about that man? What does it matter? You must think only of the people who _do_ love you. I love you, Aunt Lilian. So much, so much.” Mrs. Aldwinkle suffered herself to be a little comforted. She dried her eyes. “I shall make myself look still uglier,” she said, “if I go on crying.” There was a silence. Irene went on brushing her aunt’s hair; she hoped that Aunt Lilian had turned her thoughts elsewhere. “At any rate,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle at last, breaking the long silence, “my body is still young.” Irene was distressed. Why couldn’t Aunt Lilian think of something else? But her distress turned into an uneasy sense of embarrassment and shame as Mrs. Aldwinkle pursued the subject started by her last words into more and more intimate detail. In spite of her five years’ training in Aunt Lilian’s school, Irene felt profoundly shocked. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II “We two,” said Mr. Cardan one late afternoon some fortnight after Chelifer’s arrival, “we two seem to be rather left out of it.” “Left out of what?” asked Mr. Falx. “Out of love,” said Mr. Cardan. He looked down over the balustrade. On the next terrace below, Chelifer and Mrs. Aldwinkle were walking slowly up and down. On the terrace below that strolled the diminished and foreshortened figures of Calamy and Miss Thriplow. “And the other two,” said Mr. Cardan, as if continuing aloud the enumeration which he and his companion had made in silence, with the eye alone, “your young pupil and the little niece, have gone for a walk in the hills. Can you ask what we’re left out of?” Mr. Falx nodded. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I don’t much like the atmosphere of this house. Mrs. Aldwinkle’s an excellent woman, of course, in many respects. But ...” he hesitated.