Exeter was another. Keeping the shapes of civilisation. Charming at tea parties.... Knowing all the worldly things, made of good style from her perfect brow and nose to the tip of her slender foot ... made to shine at Ascot. It was only because she knew so much about Mrs. Drake's secret drinking, that Mrs. Drake said suddenly in that midnight moment when Exeter had swept off to bed after a tiff, "_I_ don't go to hotels, with strange men." I was reading that book of Dan Leno's and thinking that if they would let me read it aloud their voices would be different; that behind their angry voices were real selves waiting for the unreal sounds to stop. Up and down the tones of their voices were individual inflexions, feminine, innocent of harm, incapable of harm, horrified since their girlhood by what the world had turned out to be.... It was an awful shock. But Exeter paid her young man's betting debts and kept him on his feet. And _he_ was divorced. And so _nice_. But weak. Still he had the courage to shoot himself. And then _she_ took to backing horses. And now married, in a cathedral, to a vicar; looking angelic in the newspaper photograph. He has only one regret ... their childlessness. "Er? Have _children_?" Yet Mrs. Drake would be staunch and kind to her if she were in need. Women are Jesuits.... From the first, in Eleanor's mind, had shone, unquestioned, the shape of English life. Church and State and Family. God above. Her belief was perfect; impressive. In all her dealings she saw the working of a higher power, leading her to her goal. When her health failed and her vision receded, she clutched at the nearest material for making her picture. In all she had waded through, her courage had never failed. Nor her charm; the charm of her strength and her singleness of vision. Her God, an English-speaking gentleman, with English traditions, tactfully ignored all her contrivances and waited elsewhere, giving her time, ready to preside with full approval, over her accomplished aim.... Women are Jesuits.... The counterpart of all those Tansley Street women was little Mrs. Orly, innocently unscrupulous to save people from difficulty and pain.... * * * * *