But instead of widening the distance between them, Joanna went on looking over her shoulder at him, and she saw how dejectedly he lingered in the dark entrance. He was going away the day after to-morrow, and was asking for a good-bye kiss. Why would she not give one?

In all simplicity now, she ran back to him. And in the shadow of the close she threw her arms round his neck and pressed her shell-cold face to his. To Bob it was the sweetest of their few kisses; but it was a farewell kiss, and short, and he let her go.

This time she ran from him without looking back.

IX

She did not see Bob again before he left, and with his going her life became empty. All charm and interest went from her studies; and before long her manifest indifference had its effect upon her teachers. They ceased to feel any professional responsibility where she was concerned. She became a notorious shirker of classes, and passed much time in listless dabbling at her studio. Sometimes she lapsed for hours into solitary idleness.

And at home it was worse. At home there was a jarring on the girl’s exposed nerves at every turn. Juley’s late nights were telling at last on her health. She was losing her wonderful recuperative power, and she suffered from swollen ankles. The children knew now when she had slept more on her chair than in her bed, by a puffiness that showed round her eyes in the mornings. But nothing they could do or say made any difference, so they were all cutting adrift from her.

Georgie in the autumn was going to London. She returned from Dresden late in June, her dream of emulating Neruda gone, but her enthusiasm intact. A Dresden fellow-student, with a new system of teaching children, was opening a small music-school in Hampstead, and she had asked Georgie to help her. Georgie’s capital – a sum of £400 which she and Joanna alike had by their father’s will – would be involved. But what a chance after only one year’s study abroad! So Georgie got her way.

There remained the boys; and though they were full of their own occupations, their activities brought the curves of their lives nearer to Joanna’s than they had been since nursery days.

Linnet, with a mind to the Law, and a berth promised him in Mr. Boyd’s excellent firm, was preparing for Leaving Certificates. He was studious rather than clever, and often he would come to Joanna begging her to “go over” an English essay, or he would ask her advice on a mathematical problem, the principles of which had first to be explained to her, so far behind had he left his sister in school subjects.