This Is the End

hool in Surrey. She was desperately eager to join them there and it was a promise from Rosalie that she should go when she was twelve, earlier if she were good. On this eleventh birthday, which br

stories of school life; and Huggo, as Doda now adduced, was leaving his preparatory and

orrowing parents. How will you like to leave your weeping mother

ove to!" c

ss of it made h

rry, when Doda, conscious, by that laugh,

'd better,"

were received in the adapted Dower House of the ancient estate which was its home; and the last word in modernity was, in every point of administr

of the summer term. Harry declared himself, "in my bones" as he expressed it, against boarding schools for girls, "But that's my old fogeyism," said he. "It'

n a low voice,

ons but by precedents, set forth. "Mice and Mumps, Rosalie," said he, "they not only do riding as a regular thing but 'parents are permitted, if they wish, to stable a pupil's own pony (see page 26).' Oh, thanks, thank

just wat

ce them towards an independent and a womanly womanhood.' And it talks further back about how 'Idle women' will soon be recognised as great a term of reproach as 'an idle man.' It's sound. I l

t probably doesn't

ha

can alway

up quickly

and he laughed and said, "D'you know, Rosalie, I

t me that

g it about.

a year since I'd left Field's. Just a yea

face, have been a tocsin's roll. His face was as a place of assembly int

, "What

rry, you look o

ment in his face. "

n't know I was going to say it. It's

of what,

y, fo

ay something you t

want to fight it. Harry, perhaps I can't go

he had been holding.

e just

Only now. I asked you weeks ago

ndred times, just not to disturb you, dear. But when you asked me that you spoke, a minute afterwards, of my having-chucked it, as if it was giving up sugar or stopping bridge. Well, that's why I

her. "Rosalie, it wo

he leaned back in the couch a

ed her, "Are you go

a crime, Harr

elieve in my soul it

ome over here

to it, she never never can come back from it. 'They don't issue return tickets to women,' she said to me. 'If you give yourself,' she said, 'you're its. You may think you can get away but you never will get away. You're its.' She was right, Harry. I believe I've got to go back. If you don't want me to, well, you look out for yourself." She drew herself towards him by her hands. "Harry, when I we

mbraced her. "Don'

ld her body, herself had held the fort of her solicitude for his desir

lo

ry, you look out for yourself," and when she had asked him, "Harry, hold me terribly tight in your arms and say you do not want me to go back." There thenceforward did fill up her countenance the boy, mutinous and defiant, that was her other self. It was almost upon the morrow of that passage with him (whose poignancy the written word has failed to show) that she had a revulsion from the attitude she had then exposed to him. Avid now to

ifest to reason with her. Her longings now always were manifest; but when he reas

at your attitude is changed from t

it. You argue she mustn't. I could say it's monstrous. I don't say that. I choose to say it's pitiful. If it was a man, he'd go. He wouldn't think twice about it. And if he did think twice about it, every opinion and every custom that he cons

o. You're taking too much for granted, Rosalie. He wouldn't go, necessarily, an

uld have such duties. It's notable that a man always makes his d

for him to go.... Suppose nothing depended on his going

uch a case, 'Man, take up your ambitions. You are a man. You have yourself to think of.' Tha

And shall y

I'm thinkin

be hesitant? What a position! What a light upon the case and upon the status of woman that, just because she was a

I mustn't open it and go back. That's what a woman's life is-always shutting gates behind her. There aren't gates for a man. There're just turnstiles. As he came ou

d Harry. "A man much l

heard her say. "Ah, keeps his youth!" she said. "So does a d

dened h

sensibility. She then had made her life, and therefore then her happiness, by putting away sentiment and using sense for spectacles. She

ose people had a ripping place in Yorkshire. Doda came home and Doda's first excitement was that nothing arranged might interfere with an invitation from mid-August to a schoolfellow whose family were going to Brittany. So much for her holiday necessity! Rosalie thought. So much for Harry's idea of how the children would naturally long to spend the vacation all together! Doda did not seem to have a thought for Huggo, nor Huggo a thought for when he should see Doda. Neither of them, she could not help noticing, had the faintest concern to be with Benji. She and

dened h

ctober! You could not take up a paper without reading of the inauguration of the new Sessions at all the universities and seats of education. October! The newspapers that for months had been pa

ng: "Harry, I was down at F

ans or by that contributed no share to it when she had presented it. He once had referred to the dog incident. "I can't talk to you when you t

ld's to-day. They want me

and smiled at her; and he then told her that which the level quality of her voice, a note from end

its quality. "Yes,

ou. What are yo

ng b

ant

ou. I am with you,

ldren wa

leaving th

home, Rosalie. It's

ook he

e you go

ng b

ought of e

ryth

child

They don't display the same affection, not in the same way, that we used to. I wish they did. I came back f

salie." He paused. "And, Rosal

"Have I

s-" he slowly said and p

ink that. They always have. We

that woman's part is the home part; if that is going t

e pillars of the world, so will pass man's dominion. Woman's revolt-it's no use talking of it as that, as a revolt. Women aren't and never will be banded. They're like the Jews. They're everywhere but nowhere. But the Jews have had their day; woman-no

t level, Rosalie. In your case what's the need? Call it dominion.

y life to me. To you I'd only-chucked it. Oh, but that

ow it, dearest, f

il-thus sacrificing. It is the kennel dog again. If I went on I'd grow more bitter yet, more bitter and more bitter. It's why women are so much more bitter than men. It's what they've sacrificed. I'm going back, Harry. I've got to. You ask me if I've thought o

silence. She said, "

d. There's no home here while both of us are working. I have a right t

y, give yourself a home.

, "I am

red, "I a