"She must have thought that she owed her first duty to the work, and not to her own home. But I'm sorry for her now."

"So am I. She'll make it up to her mother by staying with her now, I suppose."

"If Lady Vivian wants her. But _I_ should imagine she'd hate the sight of her, almost."

"Tony!"

"Well," Miss Anthony a.s.severated, almost in tears, "I mean it. I think it's the most dreadful thing I've ever heard of, and the most unkind.

And to think how we've all been admiring her for coming to live here, and for going on with the work in spite of being anxious and unhappy about her father! Why, she can't have cared a bit!"

"But she _was_ splendid, in a sort of way," Miss Henderson said, bewildered. "Look how she's worked, and never spared herself, or given herself any rest, not even proper times off for meals. She can't have liked all that."

"I suppose," said Miss Marsh grimly, "that she liked thinking how splendid she was being, and how splendid everybody thought her. It would have been much duller for her to stay at home and do nothing, just because her father asked her to."

There was silence. To hear Miss Vivian reduced by criticism and a.n.a.lysis to the level of an ordinary human being seemed to revolutionize the whole mental outlook of the Hostel.

When Mrs. Bullivant came into the sitting-room, she looked strangely at the disturbed faces. "Dr. Prince seems to have upset you all," she said at last.

"Did you hear what he was saying about Miss Vivian, though?"

"Some of it. He asked me in the hall just now whether he'd been indiscreet. I had to say that I was afraid we'd none of us quite realized before how very much her personal influence had been counting with us in the work."

"That's quite true," said Tony dejectedly, "and I don't believe I shall ever feel the same again. Why should we all work ourselves to death for any one like that?"

"Oh, my dear," said the Superintendent, sinking into a chair, "I'm afraid that's just the weak point in women's work. So much of it is done from the _personal_ point of view. We can't keep personalities out of it."

"If you ask me, that's just what Miss Vivian has been doing. I mean, bringing her own powers of personal fascination to bear all the time."

Mrs. Bullivant sighed.

"It's the work one ought to think of, not the individual. Anyway, _my_ work here is over, I'm afraid."

"There you are!" cried Miss Plumtree. "You have to leave work you care about, just because she was uncomfortable at this Hostel. Talk about personal points-of-view!"

"Well, I've been personal long enough," declared Tony. "I shall chuck the office and go to munitions. _They're_ impersonal enough!"

She let the door bang behind her.

"Poor old Tony! She'll go to the other extreme now, and think everything Miss Vivian does is hopeless. I must say, it's a bit of a disillusionment."

Miss Delmege stood up, gulped two or three times, and at last said, rapidly and nervously: "I don't at all agree with you. We've no business to sit in judgment on her like this, and I for one shall always believe there's some satisfactory explanation to the whole thing. I'm not saying it in the least because it's Miss Vivian, but _quite_ impartially."

"Of course," said Miss Marsh, under her breath.

"Look at the way she works and all--it _is_ perfectly wonderful; and Dr.

Prince probably doesn't really know anything about what Sir Piers wanted. He's always been more or less on the defensive with Miss Vivian, just because she had to get his Hospital under proper control. It's all prejudice and disloyalty. And all I can say is, that as long as there's work to be done for Miss Vivian, I'm ready to do it, single-handed if necessary, if all the rest of you choose to desert her, and I shouldn't have the least hesitation in repeating all I've said to her face."

Miss Delmege's peroration left her rather shrill-voiced and breathless, but her pose on the hearth-rug, chin uplifted and one slim foot slightly thrust forward, was heroic in the extreme.

No one believed for a moment in her defiant a.s.sertion that she was prepared to launch her rhetorical declaration at Miss Vivian in person; but it was left to her old enemy, Miss Marsh, to remark with an unpleasant matter-of-factness: "There's no need to get so excited, Delmege. There'll be no call for you to do the work single-handed, either. I should be sorry for Miss Vivian if you tried it on, in fact.

We're all fairly patriotic, I hope, whatever we may think of Miss Vivian, and, as Mrs. Bullivant says, doing the work is the point, not the person we're working for."

"That's right," agreed Miss Henderson. "It's for the war, after all."

"Otherwise," said Miss Marsh, with an icy look at Miss Delmege, "I'm bound to say that after what we've just heard of Miss Vivian I should be very much inclined to chuck working for her straight away."

"Don't discuss it any more, girls. It won't do any good," Mrs. Bullivant declared. "You must just try and think more of the work and less of Miss Vivian. Now, I've got a treat for your supper, as it's Christmas night, and I must go and see after it. Do, some one, go and get Tony downstairs again. She can't really have meant to go to bed at this hour. She was just upset, poor child, but she'll feel better when the lamp is lit and it's all looking homely and bright."

The Superintendent hurried away.

"Isn't she ripping?" asked Miss Henderson. "Come on, Greengage, and let's fish out Tony."

"Yes, do let's try and all cheer up," begged Mrs. Potter. "It _has_ been a depressing Christmas Day. How would it be to _change_ for supper? It would please Mrs. Bullivant."

"All right, let's."

The girls hurried upstairs to hunt for clean blouses and small pieces of jewellery, and Miss Delmege was left alone, still standing in her att.i.tude of defiance before the sitting-room fire.

XVII

"Is there any more apple-pudding?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Then I will have some," said Lady Vivian, not at all unaware of the pained expression which Miss Bruce had unconsciously a.s.sumed. The unquenchable laugh still danced in her deeply-circled blue eyes as she gazed across the luncheon-table at Grace.

"Do have some more pudding, Grace. I know you never get enough to eat at your Hostel."

Miss Bruce put down her fork with a look of resignation. The excellent appet.i.te displayed by Lady Vivian seemed to her extraordinary enough on the part of one widowed only a week ago, but that of the still-visiting Miss Jones amounted to a scandal.

In Miss Bruce's opinion, Miss Jones should have removed herself from Plessing a week ago, in spite of the strong predilection evinced by Lady Vivian for her society. It was not decent, Miss Bruce thought, to shun one's own daughter and take so many and such lengthy walks in company of a comparative stranger of less than half one's own age.

"Un-natural, I call it," said Miss Bruce, shaking her head.

Char shrugged her shoulders.

"What does it matter? I'm glad she should take an interest in any one or anything, though I can't understand such a friendship for that trivial little girl myself. But one thing is certain enough: I shall have to ask her to resign. It would be quite impossible, since my mother has chosen to treat her as one of the family, to keep her on at the office when I go back there. Though perhaps I ought to say--if I go back there."

"Oh, my dear Charmian, why? Surely there can be no reason now--less than ever, I mean to say--why you should not take up that splendid work at the Supply Depot again. Why, the whole thing hinges on you."

"I know," said Char dejectedly. "But there's my mother to consider. I really don't see how I'm to leave her all alone here, and I don't know if she'll care to come into Questerham with me."

Char had hardly seen her mother since Sir Piers's funeral, three days ago. Lady Vivian had refused to display any form of prostration, had discussed every necessary item of business with John Trevellyan and Dr.

Prince, and when not engaged in answering innumerable letters and telegrams of condolences, had taken Grace Jones for long walks with her across the snowy fields.