' Have things gone wrong?' he asked.
' Yes—or right; I do not know which. Anyhow, they have gone differently to what I—well, planned. Now, the plans of dominant people go as they expect them to go.'
' Until they meet a more dominant person.'
She shook her head.
' No, if my plans have been upset, anyhow, I have upset others,' she said.
They dined rather silently, for both of them were thinking of the talk which was coming, and Sybil again was conscious of her own indecision. Then, after dinner, since delay only made her more heavily conscious of it, she went straight to the subject.
' Judy told me you had left Sheringham,' she said—' that you had practically taken yourself out of the hands of doctors who, humanly speaking, could probably have cured you. Do you think you have any right to do that?'
' My life is my own,' said he.
' Ah, I dispute that. One does not belong to one's self—at any rate, not wholly. One belongs to one's friends—to those who care for one.'
' Who cares for me? Bertie Keynes, I suppose, cares for me, but I entirely deny his right to any disposal of what I do.'
' Your mother, then.'
' In the main she agrees with me. Supposing I had cancer, she would not urge me for a moment to have an operation which was uncertain of success; and my case is similar.'
Sybil was silent a moment.
' I, then,' she said. ' I entirely disapprove of your action. I care for you; you should consider me as well. It is in that sense your life is not your own; you have made yourself a niche, so to speak, in other people's lives; you
