This Is the End

oman treasury in which she'd pour her woman love; that was to be her self's own self, her heart's

ere, except, judging by her chatter, when she's away in the holidays at the house of one of her friends. It's at home-when she is at home-that she's never really happy. She's so dull, she always says, at home. She always wants to be doing somethin

a restless perso

it is dull just

i simply lives for you. I've never known a brother so

m surely entitled to be with my own friends so

ly older than her years. She seemed to have a natural bent away from traditionally childish things and towards attractions not associated with childhood. She did excellently well at the school. She was, her reports said, uncommonly quick and vivid at her lessons. She was always in a form above her years. Her friends, while she was smallish,

ring to," said Doda, seeing it,

pression

o use

in Huggo. But Huggo's

I didn't ask

at's mere

say it, that'

g, a lot of y

n next week I go to the

s a willow wand. If she had her hair up and her skirts lengthened (skirts then were only starting on their diminution to the knees), she'd pass for twenty anywhere, and a twenty singularly attractive, curiously self-possessed, striki

nto a hospital or into any of these women's corps. They were a jolly sight too cooped up in those things from what she'd heard. She wanted to go into one of the Government offices and do clerical work. Several of the school Old Girls who had been there with her were doing that and it was the most ripping

olidays-in which these wishes were expressed, that Rosali

her bedroom to find her. She had not known that Doda was going out. The bedroom cried aloud that Doda had gone out. Drawers were open and articles of dress hanging out of them. One drawer, no doubt stu

murmured

at untidiness like that without tidying it. She started to tidy. Doda's box was open. Its contents looked as if a dog had burrowed in it, t

it quite half a dozen phot

And with slangy nicknames of the writers. There lay with them a number of letters, all in their envelop

thes in her hand. The stare that took in "Wonderful Old Thing" took in also the first few lines. They were not nice. But she oughtn't t

she went in to Doda. She opened the door softly and she dis

od

her discovery or of going to an invitation without having told her. Doda wasn't pretending to be asleep because

le pang at the h

one of them were. Even Benji not really what you would call demonstrativ

led her

her eyes. "H

. They were differ

Tidiness! "Doda, your room as you left it last nigh

aid Doda. "I simply can'

o fearfully tidy. It's almost a vice with me.

m sleepy. It's a matter of teaching when you're a kid, that so

, "And there's another thing, Doda. I think you ought not to have

w where I was. I

have consult

w could I? They only asked me on the telephon

s you were invited

ad? I knew you'd have agreed. You wouldn't have stop

alk about is this. When I was

"Did you ti

e a room like that. Well,

very quickly out of bed and put on a

ng to men at t

t's a thing to do

of yours, dear?

rs of girls I'v

ll

. Lonely soldiers, they're called. They used to adver

uggested the

ng to, though. If you

ever did when I heard of it being done. Wh

e harm? Why sh

am asking you.

ent looking out. She suddenly turned. "If you ask me, I don't think it's rig

w them there. But I'd like

on't see how you can expect m

hem and see if it's nice to go on writing to the men, in each individual case. That certainly you shall do, continue writing, if it all seems nice to us,

rom the hand that stroked her

to burn t

m. Her face was not nice. She sai

eakfast-room. Your father will have

hand on Doda's shoulder could feel Doda quivering. She went to the door a

alked towards the fire, her head held high, her brown hair in a thick tail to her waist. She had a packet in her hands. As she began to

d very soft

agment up and cast it on its fellows. The leaping flames died down. She turned violently towards Rosalie, seated at the table watching her, her heart sick. That tall, slim, beautiful creature whose face had been pale and was habitually pale was in

you. I haven't reproved you. If they had been le

"I'm nearly seventeen!

uldn't be shown. They're just burnt. They're forg

ushed herself from the arms. "Why should I

ur mother. You

sk to be born, did I? You chose for me to be born, didn't you? I

from her eyes. She gave an impassio

ike

the war over, not too quickly can give up. She loves it. She's made a host of friends. Her friends are all the girls of wealthy parents, like herself, or of parents of position if not of means; and all, like her, are far from with complaint against the war that's given them this priceless avenue away from home. She loves it. Of course she doesn't love the actual work. Who would? What she loves is the constant titillation of it. The titillation of getting down there of a morning and of the greetings and the meetings and the

ng for the night. It's just the day would be so hopeless were there n

a's association was on her feet in 1919; and for Doda very much easier, at that, than for the generality, to establish her position in the house. By 1920, when she was nineteen, she was conducting her life as she pleased, as nineteen manifestly should. In 1921, when she

ver talks much at home. She seems to keep her talking for her friends and she never brings her friends home. She's on good terms with Rosalie. That's the expression for it. She was to have been a woman treasury into which was to be poured by Rosalie all her woman love. She was to have been a woman with her mother in the hou

ss of her pictures, were together. As in their schoolhood, so much more in adolescence, they never showed a least desire for one another's company. They had their friends, each one, and much pre

nj

the quiet, gentle one; the one that

ears, with thank God, charged-with-meaning tears. The littlest one. The one t

is cheering so. Look, here he comes with the medal, in his spectacles, the darling! She can scarcely see, her eyes are brimming so. Harry's quite shameless. Harry's got tears standing on his cheeks and he's set down the prizes and is stretching both his hands out to the boy. Feel, that's his hand-her Benji's hand-snuggled a moment in hers, and then he turns to his father and is eagerly whispering to his father, his spectacles rubbing his father's head, the darling! He's more demonstrative to his father than he is to her. She feels it rather sometimes. He's awfully sweet to her, but, you can't help noticing it, it's more his gracious manner than the outpouring she'd give anything to have. It's funny how he always seems the tiniest atom strange with her as if he didn't know her very well or hadn't known her very long. It sometimes pains a little. He's different with his father. He loves being with his father. And doesn't Harry love having the boy with him! Ha

ed, no more, with Benji, always putting off or chilling off her brother for her friends; sometimes she's seen with Huggo, meeting him and he her, more like an acquaintance of their sets than like fruit of the same parents; familiar, apparently, with one another's lives: referring to places of

as it appeared, had been met at some dancing club and the brief courtship had continued anywhere but at her home. Of her home Huggo knew only what she told him; and what she t

here. If you want to know what her reverend father in the country was, is, he doesn't live in the country; he lives in Holloway, and he doesn't live in a rectory in Holloway, he lives in a baker's shop. That's what he is, a baker! That's what I've done for myself, married a waitress! Yes, and then you, you and father, when she comes whi

"Huggo, you

now I've told you! I can see things now. What sort of a chance have I ever had? What sort of a home have I ever had? Have I ever had a mother? When I was a kid did I ever have a mother like other kids have? I can see things now. A mother!

ike

ed. It was the kind of thing he was keen on. It was a motor-car business. There was a little syndicate that was putting a new car on the market. They'd got works, just outside London somewhere. They'd got show-rooms in the West End. And they'd got an absolutely firs

haps, but a sweet little soul with always about her a pathetic air of being afraid of something (of when it should come out precisely what she was, as the event proved). Of course Harry paid over the eight thousand p

e absolutely first-class article on the market. Whether it was that there never had been a business, and that Harry's inspection of works, visits to show-rooms, and examination of books, was all part of an elaborate swindle carried out with the aid of some one who possessed these accessories; or whether it was that the w

that the syndicate was not established in the West End show-rooms but in three rather dingy offices in the city. It "came out" that the syndicate was not running a motor-car business but a business cryptically described as "Agents." Huggo sa

syndicate's business in its new capacity as agents, "What I can't make out, old man, is why you should trade under another name

ther-I want you to know everyt

o, old man. I

f useful swank. The names we're trading under a

me, Huggo. We've been a good lo

ey know infinitely more about business than I do. They'll explain the whol

so early. But remember, old man, the great thing is not to let your wife suffer. No pinching or screwing for her, Huggo. Always your wife firs

s wife; shortly after that the high words to Rosalie, telling her how his wife had deceived him; shortly after that that the syndicate, amazingly prosperous, moved in

, when there had been the Huggo drinking business and when for the first and only time he had spoken passionately to Rosalie. When he now was at home he used to sit for long periods doing nothing, just thinking. When sometimes, home earlier than he, Rosalie saw him coming up the street towards the gamboge door she noticed, terribly, the

then would relapse back into his thoughts. He had a habit of getting up suddenly and rather strangely wandering about from room to room of all the principal rooms of the

ain the hear

returned from such a tour, "De

y, "No; no, dear. Just

ain the hear

was a different man when Benji was at home. He used to say, "Rosalie, that boy's going to make a name for him

away the wrappings of his heart

ain the hear

had found his feet? But Huggo scarcely ever came to the house. He had virtually left Lucy. Lucy lived on in the originally-taken furnished flat in Bayswater. Huggo had rooms somewhere, no one quite knew where, and lived there. Rosalie used to get Lucy to the house sometimes, but Lucy

dn't care what the baby was called. He was very angry about the baby. "He was worse than usual when he was here last

d by Rosalie, was still in attendance. Rosalie sent in another nurse, and on that same night, going straight to the sick bed from Field's, and then coming home very late, told Harry, who wa

y ag

or her, the new littl

es," sa

tle, "Harry, the nur

he was always si

r, won't you like the nurs

Rosalie. It's lonely, these empty ro

She touched his hand. "Dear, I

the hand that touched his own. "That's all

om an evening with a very intimate friend of hers always known, through some private joke of Doda's, as "the foreign friend." The foreign friend, not in the least foreign but English, was a young married woman living apart from her husband. Doda had

s to bed, had said, "Have you seen Hugg

what kind o

e coming away from a theatre with the foreign fri

ucy? Did he know Lucy

didn't tell me. Is she?" and

go in person, brought intelligence of both. She heard the door bell ring and in a minute Huggo surprisingly broke into

he eyes of Rosalie,

look after things over there for me? That's all I've come in to say.

ade

. But you'll be there? A

. I'm go

ng a

here's another thing. If any one comes here for me will

hat is th

l know now. Then you'll realise. If you

as g