She did not respond, since at that moment Celia hallooed, and opened a newly painted gate between brick gateposts with stone balls on them. Her tweeds, her shoes, her wrist-watch on a leather strap, were all perfectly in keeping, and she held a small trowel in her large white hand. It must be marriage, so Rachel decided during lunch, that renders one so pure from minor materialisms, and teaches a Stoic poise among graces and comforts. She looked on Celia Hanson with calm approval, admiring her tact, her flow of conversation, the white streak that had somehow been persuaded to remain no more than a magpie flash in her black hair. With the same detachment, she exclaimed at Celia’s good fortune, the charm of her house, the lofty rooms with narrow windows, the two Bartolozzis and the one Bonington, very much as though Celia were one of the Rockingham poodles in the display cabinet. A good choice … an excellent godmother. Perhaps she would be just as suitable if the child were a boy. Perhaps she would be even more suitable. Celia’s new and tweeded bonhomie might grate on a girl; but on a boy—judging from Trevor—it would fall like manna.

For Trevor, after his first disappointment at the plain brick exterior of the house, was all eyes, ears and admiration. It was as if he were in church, she thought, but playing a more concurrent part than is usual on the part of a congregation. Praising a soup that he would have thought neglected at home (surely it should have been put through a sieve or something?), carrying the tray into the kitchen without more than one startled glance at the condition of 148the sink, remarking that he had never thought a valuable picture could look as clean as the Bonington did, laughing at Celia’s jokes and refraining from making any jokes himself, he was … he was … The words were supplied by memories of Mrs Gilman. Trevor was as happy as a sandboy and as nice as you could wish.

After observing this, Rachel spent the remainder of the visit burningly resenting Celia’s contemptuous affability towards a genuinely happy guest.

Walking towards the bus, with Celia’s brisk adieux still warm in his ears, Trevor looked sideways at his wife. She must be feeling it. He himself, with so little claim to do so, was decidedly feeling it; and Rachel, to whom all these confident luxuries, these soups and satins, were natural as a birthright, must be expected to be feeling it much more. But Rachel was smiling, and looking unusually pleased with herself. And immediately, Trevor knew why. Rachel, to put it vulgarly, knew which side her bread was buttered; comparing her lot with Celia’s, she realized how much better it was to be walking away with a husband of her own, and felt a womanly satisfaction. During the years of living with the Gilman family, Trevor had on several occasions slunk off to the Marriage Guidance Bureau—alone; for Rachel had never wished to consult that organization. The Marriage Guidance Bureau had always assured him that the moment his wife had a little home of her own, everything would come right. And it had turned out exactly as they said it would.