In Mr. Wilkins's conversation she found temporary relief, but
though he joined her whenever he could he was not always there, for he
spread his attentions judiciously among the three ladies, and when he
was somewhere else she had to face and manage her thoughts as best she
could by herself. Perhaps it was the excess of light and colour at San
Salvatore which made every other place seem dark and black; and Prince
of Wales Terrace did seem a very dark black spot to have to go back to
--a dark, narrow street, and her house dark and narrow as the street,
with nothing really living or young in it. The goldfish could hardly
be called living, or at most not more than half living, and were
certainly not young, and except for them there were only the maids, and
they were dusty old things.
Dusty old things. Mrs. Fisher paused in her thoughts, arrested
by the strange expression. Where had it come from? How was it
possible for it to come at all? It might have been one of Mrs.
Wilkins's, in its levity, its almost slang. Perhaps it was one of
hers, and she had heard her say it and unconsciously caught it from
her.
If so, this was both serious and disgusting. That the foolish
creature should penetrate into Mrs. Fisher's very mind and establish
her personality there, the personality which was still, in spite of the
harmony apparently existing between her and her intelligent husband, so
alien to Mrs.
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