explained. "She has plenty of other things and other people
to think about. She made a false start with the Wilcoxes,
and she'll be as willing as we are to have nothing more to
do with them."

"For a clever girl, dear, how very oddly you do talk.
Helen'll HAVE to have something more to do with them, now
that they're all opposite. She may meet that Paul in the
street. She cannot very well not bow."

"Of course she must bow. But look here; let's do the
flowers. I was going to say, the will to be interested in
him has died, and what else matters? I look on that
disastrous episode (over which you were so kind) as the
killing of a nerve in Helen. It's dead, and she'll never be
troubled with it again. The only things that matter are the
things that interest one. Bowing, even calling and leaving
cards, even a dinner-party--we can do all those things to
the Wilcoxes, if they find it agreeable; but the other
thing, the one important thing--never again. Don't you see?"

Mrs. Munt did not see, and indeed Margaret was making a
most questionable statement--that any emotion, any interest
once vividly aroused, can wholly die.

"I also have the honour to inform you that the Wilcoxes
are bored with us. I didn't tell you at the time--it might
have made you angry, and you had enough to worry you--but I
wrote a letter to Mrs. W., and apologized for the trouble
that Helen had given them. She didn't answer it."