So Elizabeth was glad to leave Queen’s Halt, even though it meant hotel life for a spell. That did not seem to matter, somehow, especially since they were to have a private sitting-room. The sitting-room was Stephen’s suggestion: he thought she would not care to entertain her friends in the public lounge. In little things like that which had to do with her comfort and well-being, he was consideration itself. She realised that she had still only to mention a wish. If it were in his power to do so, he would grant it at once.

The Ardens welcomed Elizabeth to town with open arms; she was often at the Boltons, trying to feel that the old life was not closed to her. But it was closed, and she knew it. It was left far behind, just as far behind as the new life was far ahead.

She was pleased to see Sarah again. Sarah was going to Switzerland for winter-sports; it was fun to help choose the clothes she would need. She and Sarah shopped together, and went to picture-galleries while Stephen held long business interviews with his agent, and other people. Elizabeth was not interested in business; she did not want to know that Stephen had sold his Rubber shares and was doing a little flutter in Oil; she was not really interested to hear that he had changed his publisher. She did not appreciate the significance of publishers.

Cynthia and Anthony had returned from Scotland, and Cynthia was making a determined effort to become intimate with Elizabeth. Elizabeth wished that she would not; Mrs. Ramsay she had come to love; Cynthia she felt she could never love.

“What’s Stephen’s book like?” Cynthia asked. “The institution of Norman was a splash of genius.”

“He’s only done half,” Elizabeth answered. “It’s clever, I think.”

“Yes, cleverness is his besetting sin,” Cynthia said. “That, and facility.”

Elizabeth did not quite understand.

“Facility? But—”

“You don’t agree? I think he writes too easily. Nicely balanced sentences trickle off his pen, and he doesn’t have to prune or re-write.”

“I should have thought that that was an advantage.”

“From the viewpoint of celerity, undoubtedly,” Cynthia said curtly.

That was how Cynthia puzzled you. She said things that you felt to be clever, or apt, yet that you could not understand. Elizabeth, instead of meeting bluntness with bluntness, would nod wisely, and never say in frankness, I don’t understand; please explain. She hoped all the time that no one would perceive her ignorance, or think her dull and stupid.

She was rather surprised to find that with her own family she could talk, quite brightly, rather like Stephen, or Nina. Lawrence said again that she had blossomed forth. With him she felt that she had; with her husband, and his family, the old reticence and nervousness returned.

At a subscription dance to which she and Stephen, and the Ruthvens went, she met Wendell.