Then she would try over the aspects of our new separated lives.

"I ought to earn my own living," she would insist.

"I want to be quite independent. I've always hated London. Perhaps I
shall try a poultry farm and bees. You won't mind at first my being a
burden. Afterwards--"

"We've settled all that," I said.

"I suppose you will hate me anyhow..."

There were times when she seemed to regard our separation with
absolute complacency, when she would plan all sorts of freedoms and
characteristic interests.

"I shall go out a lot with Smithie," she said.

And once she said an ugly thing that I did indeed hate her for that I
cannot even now quite forgive her.

"Your aunt will rejoice at all this. She never cared for me..."

Into my memory of these pains and stresses comes the figure of Smithie,
full-charged with emotion, so breathless in the presence of the horrid
villain of the piece that she could make no articulate sounds. She
had long tearful confidences with Marion, I know, sympathetic close
clingings. There were moments when only absolute speechlessness
prevented her giving me a stupendous "talking-to"--I could see it in