old bachelor drawing-room--often at the most _unseasonable_ times.
And--so lavishly...."

Mr. Britling attempted consolations.

"But anyhow," said Mr. Dimple, "I'm better off than poor dear Mrs.
Bynne. She secured two milliners. She insisted upon them. And their
clothes were certainly beautifully made--even my poor old unworldly eye
could tell that. And she thought two milliners would be so useful with a
large family like hers. They certainly _said_ they were milliners. But
it seems--I don't know what we shall do about them.... My dear Mr.
Britling, those young women are anything but milliners--anything but
milliners...."

A faint gleam of amusement was only too perceptible through the good
man's horror.

"Sirens, my dear Mr. Britling. Sirens. By profession."...


Section 10

October passed into November, and day by day Mr. Britling was forced to
apprehend new aspects of the war, to think and rethink the war, to have
his first conclusions checked and tested, twisted askew, replaced. His
thoughts went far and wide and deeper--until all his earlier writing
seemed painfully shallow to him, seemed a mere automatic response of
obvious comments to the stimulus of the war's surprise. As his ideas
became subtler and profounder, they became more difficult to express; he
talked less; he became abstracted and irritable at table. To two people