' Don't be risky; it doesn't suit you. Really, Sybil, considering what—what great natural advantages you have, you should study yourself more closely. Just as a fault of manner committed by a woman who wears a beautiful dress is worse than a fault of manner committed by a charwoman, so you, with your appearance, should be doubly careful not to say anything out of character.'
' Dear Judy, you are charming, but do keep to the point.'
' I thought you were the point; I am sure I have talked about nothing else.'
' I know: it is charming of you; and you have yawned so frightfully doing it that it is cruel to bring you back to it. But I really want your advice now at once.'
Judy poured out some hot water from a blanketed jug, and sipped it. Having an admirable digestion, she was determined to keep it. ' Take care of your health, if it is good,' was a maxim of hers. ' If it is inferior, try to think about something better.'
' State your case, then, in a very few words,' she said, looking at the clock.
' It is fast,' said Sybil, laughing, ' though not so fast as I should wish. Well, it is this: I am twenty-five years old, and I don't believe I have the faculty of what is known as falling in love. It always seems to me I haven't time, to begin with. I was married, as you know, at eighteen, but I can't imagine I was ever in love with John. Otherwise that horror couldn't have happened.'
Judy looked up, forgetting the time and the hot water.
' What horror?' she asked.
The light died out of Sybil's face; she looked like a troubled child.
' I have never told anyone,' she said, ' because I was ashamed, but I will tell you to make you understand me. He was ill, as you know, for months before he died; every day I used to grow sick at the thought of having to sit by
