On their way to the shops, the elder sister, warm with the consciousness that she had given from her own rich store to one in distress, began rosily to sketch out her son’s future and her plans for his upbringing.

She was, she declared, ambitious in the best sense of the word. In baby Sholto the fine religious motive of his grandparents was to be mingled with his father’s agnostic humanitarianism. But above all things he was to have absolute tolerance inculcated. From an early age he should develop grace of body and a sense of rhythm by means of the very latest method, the lamentable absence of which in Georgie’s own childhood must entirely account for her own abortive musical attainment. (She stated now by the light of this new discovery that even in Dresden the teaching had been completely at fault.) Sholto was never to be punished or forced to act against his inclinations, but would gain his education in Nature’s own way, by receiving full and truthful answers to his questions. Georgie herself might be a stupid failure – she laughed happily – in everything she had tried save motherhood. But what did that matter? All that mattered was the new generation, which was so wonderfully to profit by our mistakes. They would do, and do far better all that we had left undone.

It would have surprised Georgie could she possibly have known how every word of cheer she uttered struck a fresh blow at the last of her sister’s hopes. Joanna herself did not immediately guess the collapse of that hope. At first she only knew that as she listened her heart grew more and more like lead in her breast, and she wondered vaguely why this should be when she had a fair degree of sympathy with Georgie’s theories of education.

But in Regent Street, while they were buying little wincey dresses and woolly jackets and boots and cunning caps for Baby, it broke upon her so suddenly that for the space of about a minute the shop and all it contained whirled about her like a tornado.

Not for her that newly-springing and so fair-seeming hope that by her own achievement of motherhood she might make good! Not any longer for her! Here was Georgie turning each purchase over, again and again reminding Joanna of their mother as she tested its softness against her cheek. Ah! There it was! Their mother had done this for them, and her mother for her, always with the same eager and touching confidence in the next generation. And what was to come of it?

Nothing!

Nothing – because it was based on a lie. Nothing – because it was a shirking of the personal issue. Nothing – because it was the last, most exquisite cowardice.

Shaking all over, Joanna examined some white lute ribbon her sister had put just then into her hand, and she gave as her opinion that it would be quite strong enough for binding flannel pilches.