certainly calmer; and she herself had no doubt too that she was wiser.
Neither had Mrs. Wilkins any doubt of this; the very way Mrs. Arbuthnot
parted her hair suggested a great calm that could only proceed from
wisdom.

But if she was wiser, older and calmer, Mrs. Arbuthnot's new
friend nevertheless seemed to her to be the one who impelled.
Incoherent, she yet impelled. She appeared to have, apart from her
need of help, an upsetting kind of character. She had a curious
infectiousness. She led one on. And the way her unsteady mind leaped
at conclusions--wrong ones, of course; witness the one that she, Mrs.
Arbuthnot, was miserable--the way she leaped at conclusions was
disconcerting.

Whatever she was, however, and whatever her unsteadiness, Mrs.
Arbuthnot found herself sharing her excitement and her longing; and
when the letter had been posted in the letter-box in the hall and
actually was beyond getting back again, both she and Mrs. Wilkins felt
the same sense of guilt.

"It only shows," said Mrs. Wilkins in a whisper, as they turned
away from the letter-box, "how immaculately good we've been all our
lives. The very first time we do anything our husbands don't know
about we feel guilty."

"I'm afraid I can't say I've been immaculately good," gently
protested Mrs. Arbuthnot, a little uncomfortable at this fresh example
of successful leaping at conclusions, for she had not said a word about
her feeling of guilt.