before. She did not talk disloyally of Felix, nor despairingly of her life—simply answered Cicely's tactful questions honestly, listlessly, and found immense relief in doing so.
The children came in later, and shook hands with Cicely, then stole out again into an adjoining room to gaze through a half-closed door at the lovely lady mother had brought home, in the big automobile out in front. At a little after six Felix came in and shook hands, too, apologizing uncomfortably for the way he looked, then also stole out into an adjoining room.
Cicely was very thoughtful as she drove home that night, alone in the back of her car, underneath the stars. Her life had not been rich with close relationships. She had never married. Denied the one man she had ever wanted, she preferred no makeshifts. Denied the one close relationship that would have made the cultivation of others seem worth while to her, she had chosen to withdraw into her brain, as it were, concentrate on mental activities, make of herself a creature of thought and action, submerge feeling. She had had enough of feeling and its ravages.
Other women, disappointed as she had been, often find consolation in substituting quantity for quality, building up about themselves a fortress of many
