would enable her to retire from the engagement without loss of
self-respect or that of Ishmael.

For gradually she became quite sure that she could not go through with
it, that she must get right away. The people she wanted to know had not
called on her--the Parson, on whose help she had relied, held out no
assistance; Annie was stubborn and would obviously, wherever she was, do
her best to make of herself a barrier against the world, the world that
Blanche must know if life were to be tolerable here. The climax, to
Blanche's mind, had been a ball just given by a local magnate and his
wife who lived on the outskirts of Penzance. Ishmael had been invited
and she with him, under the chaperonage of an elderly cousin of the
Parson's who was staying at the Vicarage. And the ball, from Blanche's
point of view, had been a failure. She had been received politely, but
without enthusiasm; and she had overheard some of the other guests
saying that they supposed young Ruan had had to be invited, but that it
was really dashed awkward!... And she was beginning to realise that
Ishmael, when he had paid his mother a little income, paid Vassie enough
to live on, paid John-James bigger wages to allow of his living
elsewhere, would not be nearly as well off as she had thought ... a
visit to London once a year would be the utmost to be hoped for. And for
the rest--year in, year out, at Cloom, watching the waxing and waning of
the seasons, bearing children, the children Ishmael looked for to
inherit the horrid place after him.... Blanche, fond as she still was of
him, literally shuddered as she saw where glamour, in company with
boredom and desperation, had been about to lead her. After all, she need
not despair: there were other men in the world, and she had been silly
to expect to meet anyone she could marry at the theatre; it was no sign
of waning charm that she had failed there. If only she could think of a
good excuse, she would go home and write to Ishmael from there.... Yet