I don't think I'd have the heart to launch out into business, at forty-four. But I hardly expect you to understand that. You're young and happy. You have everything in front of you."
"Happy?" asked Judy. "Did you say happy?"
He looked quickly at her.
"Aren't you?"
She met his eyes squarely.
"If a rat in a trap or a squirrel in a cage is happy, then perhaps I am. I hate the life I'm living. Yes, I do, I hate it. If it weren't for Noel and Madame Claire, I'd—I don't know what I'd do. Something pretty desperate, just to get away from it."
He sat looking at her as if he couldn't trust his own senses. She couldn't be serious.
"You're a sentimentalist," she went on. "You believe what you like to believe. I suppose you've imagined all sorts of pretty things about me. I assure you, that rather than go on living as I've been living, I'd change places with the between-maid in our kitchen. It wasn't so bad during the war. I did nursing then. But now, because I'm the only daughter, mother and father won't hear of my taking up any sort of work. I go once a week to Bermondsy to teach a class of girls hat-trimming, and even that's frowned upon be-
