The soft, murmuring voice went on above her:

"I never heard of such a thing in my life as Barbara's bringing you here today--she never explained when she telephoned that you hadn't been in England for goodness knows how many years, let alone to this house. And, of course, I thought she'd settled it all with you, till I saw your face when she brought you into the drawing-room, all full of tiresome people, and brothers and sisters you hadn't set eyes on for _years_. Then I knew, of course, and I could have smacked her. You poor child!"

"No, no," sobbed Alex incoherently. "It's only just at first, and coming back and finding them all so changed, and not knowing what I am going to do."

"Do! Why, you're coming here. Cedric and Rosemary and I want you, and Barbara doesn't deserve to keep you after the way she's begun. I'll settle it all with her."

"Oh, how _kind_ you are to me!" cried Alex.

Violet bent down and kissed her.

"Kind! Why, aren't I your sister, and Rosemary your one and only niece?

Look at her, Alex, and see if she's like any one. Cedric sometimes says she's like your father."

"A little, perhaps. But she's very like you, I think."

"Oh, I never had those great, round, grey eyes! Those are Cedric's. And perhaps yours--they're the same colour. Anyway, I believe she's really very like what you must have been as a baby, Alex!"

It was evident that Violet was paying the highest compliment within her power.

Alex put out her hand timidly to little Rosemary. She was not at all shy, and seemed accustomed to being played with and admired, as she sat on her mother's lap. Alex thought how pretty and happy she and Violet looked together. She was emotionally too much worn-out, and had for too many years felt herself to be completely and for ever outside the pale of warm, human happiness, to feel any pang of envy.

Presently Violet reluctantly gave up Rosemary to the nurse again, and said:

"I'm afraid we ought to go down. I don't like to leave Barbara any longer. She never comes up here--hardly ever. Poor Barbara! I sometimes think it's because she hasn't any babies of her own. Let's come down and find her, Alex."

They found Barbara in the library, earnestly talking to Cedric, who was leaning back, smoking and looking very much bored.

He sprang up when they entered, and from his relieved manner and from Barbara's abrupt silence, Alex conjectured that they had been discussing her own return.

She stood for a moment, forlorn and awkward, till Violet sank on to the big red-leather sofa, and held out her hand in invitation to her.

"Give me a cigarette, Cedric. What have you and Barbara been plotting--like two conspirators?"

Cedric laughed, looking at her with a sort of indulgent pride, but Barbara said with determined rapidity:

"It's all very well, Violet, to laugh, but we've got to talk business.

After all, this unexpected step of Alex' has made a lot of difference.

One thought of her as absolutely settled--as father did, when he made his will."

"You see, Alex," Cedric told his sister, "the share which should have been yours was divided by father's will between Barbara and Pamela, and there was no mention of you, except just for the fifty pounds a year which my father thought would pay your actual living expenses in the convent. He never thought of your coming away again."

"How could he, after all these years?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Barbara.

"I know. But I couldn't have stayed on, Cedric, indeed I couldn't. I know I ought to have found out sooner that I wasn't fitted for the life--but if you knew what it's all been like--"

Her voice broke huskily, and despair overwhelmed her at the thought of trying to explain what they would never understand.

"Poor little thing!" said Violet's compa.s.sionate voice. "Of course, you couldn't stay on. They've nearly killed you, as it is--wretched people!"

"No--no. They were kind--"

"The point is, Alex," Barbara broke in, "that you've only got the wretched fifty pounds a year. Of course, I'd be more than glad to let you have what would naturally have been yours--but how on earth I'm to manage it, I don't know. Cedric can tell you what a state poor Ralph left his affairs in--you'd never believe how little I have to live on.

Of course, the money from father was a G.o.dsend, I don't deny it. But if Cedric thinks it's justice to give it back to you--"

She looked terribly anxious, gazing at her brother.

"No, no, Barbara!" said Alex, horrified. "I don't want the money. Of course, you must keep it--you and Pamela."

"That's all very well, my dear Alex," said Cedric sensibly, "but how do you propose to live? You must look at it from a practical point of view."

"Then you think--" broke from Barbara irrepressibly.

"No, my dear, I don't. One knows very well, as things are--as poor Ralph left things--it would be almost out of the question to expect--"

He looked helplessly at his wife.

"Of course, dear," she said placidly. "But there's Pamela's share."

"Pamela will marry, of course. She's sure to marry, but until then--or at least until she comes of age--I don't think--as her guardian--"

Cedric broke off, looking much hara.s.sed.

"If Pam married a rich man--which she probably will," said Violet, with a low laugh.

"We can't take distant possibilities into consideration," Barbara interposed sharply. "We're dealing with actual facts."

Alex looked from one to the other with bewilderment. She hardly understood what they were all discussing. From the natural home of her childhood and girlhood, where she had lived as unthinking of ways and means as every other girl of her cla.s.s and generation, she had pa.s.sed into the convent world, where all was communal, and the rights of the individual a thing part shunned, part unknown. She could not, at first, grasp that Cedric and Barbara and Violet, perhaps Pam and Archie, too, were all wondering how she would be able to maintain herself on fifty pounds a year.

"Of course," Barbara was saying, "Alex could come to me for a bit--I'd love to have you, dear--but you saw for yourself what a tiny place mine is--and there's only Ada. I don't quite know what she'd say to having two people instead of one, I must say--"

"We want her, too," Violet exclaimed caressingly. "Let us have her for a little while, Barbara,--while you're preparing Ada's mind for the shock." She broke into her low, gurgling laugh again.

Barbara looked infinitely relieved.

"What do you think, Alex? It isn't that I wouldn't love to have you--but there's no denying that ways and means _do_ count, and in a tiny household like mine, every item adds up."

"Oh," said Alex desperately, "I know what you must feel--the difficulty of--of knowing what to do with me. It's always been like that, ever since I was a little girl. I've made a failure of everything. Don't you remember--Barbara, _you_ must--old Nurse saying, 'Alex will never stick to anything'? And I never have, I never shall. I can only make dreadful muddles and failures, and upset you all. If only one could wreck one's own life without interfering with other people's!"

There was a silence, which Alex, after her outburst, knew very well was not one of comprehension. Then Cedric said gently:

"You mustn't let yourself exaggerate, my dear. We're very glad to have you with us again, one only can't help wishing it had been rather sooner. But there's no use in crying over spilt milk, and after all, as Violet says, there's no hurry about anything. Come to us and have a good long rest--you look as though you needed it--and get a little flesh on your bones again. We can settle all the rest afterwards."

Alex saw Barbara looking at her with furtive eagerness. She turned to her, with the utter dependence on another's judgment that had become second nature to her.

"When shall I go?"

"My dear!" protested Barbara. "Of course, the longer you can stay with me the better I shall be pleased. It's only that Ada--" She broke off at the sound of Violet's irrepressible laugh.