For ten years there had been no men in her life, and now at thirty-seven, when she was almost middle-aged, she was beginning to feel curious about the history of the first good-looking man she encountered--about a mere robust, boisterous embodiment of masculinity.

"What difference can it make to me who Alice is ?" she demanded indignantly.

"What possible difference ?" She forced herself to think tenderly of Arthur; but during the last few months the image of Arthur had receded an immeasurable distance from her life.

His remoteness and his unreality distressed her; but try as she would, she could not recall him from the gauzy fabric of dreams to the tangible substance of flesh.
"It isn't that I care for myself," she said to Miss Polly abruptly, as if she were defending herself against an unspoken accusation.
"I am a working woman, and a working woman can't afford to be snobbish--certainly a dressmaker can't--but I must look after my children.

That is an imperative duty.