What Not: A Prophetic Comedy Page 8

  CHAPTER VII

  THE BREAKING POINT

  1

  It was six months later: in fact, April. It was a Saturday afternoon,and many people were going home from work, including Kitty Grammont andIvy Delmer, who were again in the Bakerloo tube, on their way toMarylebone for Little Chantreys.

  The same types of people were in the train who had been in it on theMonday morning in May which is described in the opening chapter of thiswork. The same types of people always are in tube trains (except on theair-raid nights of the Great War, when a new and less self-containedtype was introduced). But they were the same with a difference: it wasas if some tiny wind had stirred and ruffled the face of sleepingwaters. In some cases the only difference was a puzzled, half-awakened,rather fretful look, where had been peace. This was to be observed inthe faces of the impassive shopping women. Still they sat and gazed, butwith a difference. Now and then a little shiver of something almost likea thought would flicker over the calm, observing, roving eyes, whichwould distend a little, and darken with a faint annoyance and fear. Thenit would pass, and leave the waters as still as death again; but it hadbeen there. And it was quite certain there were fewer of theseruminating ladies. Some had perhaps died of the Mind Training Course, oftrying to use their brains. (They say that some poor unfortunates whohave never known the touch of soap and water on their bodies die oftheir first bath on being brought into hospital: so these.) Some who hadbeen in the ruminating category six months ago were now reading papers.Some others, who still gazed at their fellows, gazed in a differentmanner; they would look intently at someone for half a minute, then lookaway, and their lips would move, and it was apparent that they were, notsaying their prayers, but trying to repeat to themselves every detail ofwhat they had seen. For this was part of the Government Mind TrainingCourse (observation and accuracy). And one large and cow-like lady witha shopping-bag containing circulating library books and othercommodities said to her companion, in Kitty Grammont's hearing, twothings that accorded strangely with her aspect.

  "I couldn't get anything worth reading out of the library to-day--theyhadn't got any of the ones I'd ordered. These look quite silly, I'msure. There aren't many good books written, do you think?"

  Doubtful she was, and questioning: but still, she had used the word"good" and applied it to a book, as she might have to butter, or ahousemaid, or a hat, implying a possible, though still dimly discerned,difference between one book and another. And presently she said astranger thing.

  "What," she enquired, "do you think about the state of things betweenBavaria and Prussia? Relations to-day seemed more strained than ever, Ithought."

  Her companion could not be said to rise to this; she replied merely(possibly having a little missed the drift of the unusual question) thatin her view relations were very often a nuisance, and exhausting. So thesubject was a little diverted; it went off, in fact, on tosisters-in-law; but still it had been raised.

  Beyond these ladies sat another who looked as if she had obtainedexemption from the Mind Training Course on the ground that her mind (ifany) was not susceptible of training; and beyond her sat a little typisteating chocolates and reading the _Daily Mirror_. Last May she had beenreading "The love he could not buy"; this April she was reading "How tomake pastry out of nuts." Possibly by Christmas she might be reading"Which way shall I Vote and Why?"

  Ivy Delmer, next her, was reading the notices along the walls. Between"Ask Mr. Punch into your home" and "Flee from the wrath to come" therewas a gap, where a Safety if Possible notice had formerly offered thecounsel "Do not sit down in the street in the middle of the traffic oryou may get killed." A month ago this had been removed. It had,apparently, been decided by the Safety if Possible Council that thepublic had at last outgrown their cruder admonitions. The number ofstreet accidents was, in fact, noticeably on the decline. It seemed asif people were learning, slowly and doubtfully, to connect cause andeffect. A was learning why he would be killed, B why he would not. IvyDelmer noticed the gap on the wall, and wondered what would take itsplace. Perhaps it would be another text; but texts were diminishing infrequency; one seldom saw one now. More likely it would be anexhortation to Take a Holiday in the Clouds, or Get to Watford in fiveminutes by Air (and damn the risk).

  Ivy, as she had a year ago, looked round at the faces of herfellow-travellers--mostly men and girls going home from business. Quitea lot of young men there were in these days; enough, you'd almost think,for there to be one over for Ivy to marry some day.... Ivy sighed alittle. She hoped rather that this would indeed prove to be so, buthoped without conviction. After all, few girls could expect to getmarried in these days. She supposed that if she married at all, sheought to take a cripple, or a blind one, and keep him. She knew thatwould be the patriotic course; but how much nicer it would be to betaken by a whole one and get kept! She looked at the pale, maimed youngmen round her, and decided that they didn't, mostly, look like keepinganyone at all, let alone her; they were too tired. The older men lookedmore robust; but older men are married. Some of them looked quitecapable and pleased with themselves, as if they were saying, "What haveI got out of it, sir? Why, L100 more per annum, more self-confidence,and a clearer head."

  There was also a brilliant-looking clergyman, engaged probably inreforming the Church; but clergymen are different, one doesn't marrythem. Altogether, not a hopeful collection.

  The train got to Marylebone pretty quickly, because it had almostabandoned its old habit of stopping half-way between every two stations.No one had ever quite known why it had done this in the past, but, withthe improvement in the brains of the employees of the electric railways,the custom had certainly gradually decreased.

  Marylebone too had undergone a change: there was rather less runninghither and thither, rather less noise, rather less smoke, and the clockwas more nearly right. Nothing that would strike the eye of anyone whowas not looking for signs, but little manifestations which made theheart, for instance, of Nicholas Chester stir within him withsatisfaction when he came that way, or the way of any other station(excepting only the stations of the South Eastern line, the directorsand employees of which had been exempted in large numbers from the MindTraining Act by the Railway Executive Committee, as not being likely toprofit by the course).

  Certainly the train to Little Chantreys ran better than of old, and withhardly any smoke. Someone had hit on a way of reducing the smokenuisance; probably of, eventually, ending it altogether. Kitty Grammontand Ivy Delmer found themselves in the same compartment, and talked atintervals on the journey. Ivy thought, as she had thought several timesduring the last few months, that Kitty looked prettier than of old, andsomehow more radiant, more lit up. They talked of whether you ought towear breeches as near to town as West Ealing, and left it unsettled.They talked of where you could get the best chocolates for the leastmoney, and of what was the best play on just now. They talked of theexcess of work in the office at the present moment, caused by the newInstruction dealing with the exemption of journalists whose mentalcategory was above B2. (This was part of the price which had to be paidby the Brains Ministry for the support of the press, which is soimportant.) They began to talk, at least Ivy did, of whether you cansuitably go to church with a dog in your muff; and then they got toLittle Chantreys.

  2

  Ivy found her parents in the garden, weeding the paths. Jane and Johnwere playing football, and Jelly was trotting a lonely trail round thedomains in a character apparently satisfactory to himself but whichwould have been uncertain to an audience.

  "Well, dear," said the vicar, looking up at Ivy from his knees. Thevicarage had not yet adopted the new plan of destroying weeds byelectricity; they had tried it once, but the electricity had somehowgone astray and electrified Jelly instead of the weeds, so they hadgiven it up. The one-armed soldier whom they employed as gardeneroccasionally pulled up a weed, but not often, and he was off thisafternoon anyhow, somewhat to the Delmers' relief. Of course one mustemploy disabled soldiers, but the work gets on
quicker without them.

  "Have you had a hard day, darling?" enquired Mrs. Delmer, busyscrabbling with a fork between paving-stones.

  "Rather," said Ivy, and sat down on the wheel-barrow. "The Department'sfrightfully rushed just now.... Mr. Prideaux says the public is in astate of unrest. It certainly seems to be, from the number of grumblingletters it writes us.... You're looking tired, Daddy."

  "A little, dear." The vicar got up to carry away his basket of weeds tothe bonfire. Mrs. Delmer said, "Daddy's had a worrying time in theparish. Two more poor little abandoned babies."

  "Where were they left this time?" Ivy asked with interest.

  "One at the Police Station, with a note to say the government had driventhe parents to this; the other just outside our garden door, with nonote at all, but I suppose it's the same old story. We've no clue toeither yet; they're not from Little Chantreys, of course, but I supposewe shall trace them in time. Daddy's been making enquiries among thevillage people; none of them will say, if they know, but Daddy saysthey're all in a sad state of anger and discontent about the Baby Laws;he thinks they're working up worse every day. There's so much talk ofdifferent laws for rich and poor. Of course when people say that, whatthey always mean is that it's the same law for both, and ought to bedifferent. Even that isn't true, of course, in this case, as the taxesare in proportion to the income; but it certainly does come very hard onthe poor. Daddy thinks it his duty to preach about it again to-morrow,and that worries him, because he may get arrested and fined. But hefeels it's right. He thinks the country is in real danger of risings andrevolts if this goes on. He says the Stop It League is doing its best tostir up rebellion, and that would be _such_ a calamity. And all thesepoor little babies abandoned or disowned all over the country; it goesto one's heart.... Don't talk about it, darling, it worries Daddy so....And poor Brown is _so_ little use with the vegetable garden. His MindTraining Course seems really to have quite upset him; he talks and looksso strangely now. And Daddy's worried about Mr. Hawtrey" (the curate),"who's joined the Church Improvement Society and has become dreadfullyrestless, and keeps saying Daddy ought to join it too."

  Mrs. Delmer sighed, and changed the subject, as the vicar came back, tothe amount of blossom there was on the white-heart cherry.

  Ivy went indoors. She went up to the room she shared with Betty. Bettywas there, staining a straw hat with Jackson's nut-brown hat-polish.

  Ivy said, "A nice mess you're making. I should think you might rememberit's my room as well as yours," and Betty said, "Socks." From which itmay be inferred that these sisters, good-humoured in the main to others,were frequently short-tempered to one another.

  Ivy said next, opening a drawer, "I won't stand it. You've been pinchingmy handkerchiefs."

  Betty replied absently, and as if from habit rather than fromreflection, "Haven't been near your old drawer."

  "Liar. There were twelve here this morning and now there are only ten.I've told you before I won't stand having my things pinched. If you'retoo slack to earn enough to keep yourself in handkerchiefs, you must dowithout, that's all."

  "I suppose you'd rather I'd used my sleeve at the Whites' tennis thismorning, wouldn't you?"

  "_I_ shouldn't care if you had.... Tennis in the morning's a prettyrotten idea anyhow, if you ask me. You're the biggest slacker I evercame across. If I was Daddy I wouldn't keep you eating your head off,even if you aren't clever. You're going on like a girl before the war.Your Training Course doesn't seem to have done you the slightest good,either. It's people like you who'll rot up the whole plan."

  "It's rot anyhow," Betty returned, without interest, turning her hatabout critically. "You should just hear the way they're all going onabout it in the village. Stuff and nonsense, I call it. And as long aspeople like me and the village--normal, ordinary people--think it'sstuff and nonsense, ... well, it _will_ be stuff and nonsense, that'sall."

  "People like you," Ivy retorted witheringly, as she changed her skirtfor her country breeches.

  But, after all, that retort didn't dispose of Betty, or the people likeBetty ... or the whole vicarage family ... or most of LittleChantreys.... Those people, after all, were going to take more disposingof than that.... They were, quite possibly, going to take more disposingof than anyone yet knew.

  "Silly ass," said Ivy, but with a touch of doubt.

  She thought her new green breeches were rather nice, anyhow, and thatseemed to matter more.

  3

  Kitty found her brother Cyril at the End House. Cyril was in a poor way.His publishing business was on the edge of bankruptcy.

  "So much for your abominable Brains Ministry," he complained. "The massof safe, mediocre stuff on which publishers count for a living whilethey adventure with the risks is being gradually withdrawn. It simplydoesn't come in. Its producers are becoming--many of them--just toointelligent. I'm not imagining this; I know of several cases in which ithas happened; of people who have developed just enough distaste fortheir own work to dry them up altogether. What's worse, there isn't thesame sale for such stuff as there was. When the process has gone muchfurther (if ever it does)--so far that a lot of really good stuff isturned out, and read by large numbers of people, business will be allright again. Till then, publishers are in a poor way.... Verse isdropping off, too, like autumn leaves. That's all to the good.... Idaresay in another year or two (unless you're wrecked first, which seemsprobable, by the way) there'll only be about a hundred people left inthe country writing anything at all.... Newspapers, of course, go onmuch the same; that's because you're afraid of them and exempt theirstaff. Insignificant verse and meaningless novels may die a naturaldeath (though I think it improbable), but _Myosotis_ and the _Patriot_and the _Daily Idiot_ will go on for ever. You're all such cowards atWhitehall. You dare to ruin unoffending publishers, to browbeat the poorand simple, and to extract gold from the innocent babe unborn, but youdaren't risk the favour of the press."

  "No," Kitty agreed. "We certainly daren't.... Not that we've got it, youknow, quite the contrary; but we strive for it. I was reading the_Herald_ and _Stop It_ in the train, till I was cold with fear. _StopIt_ veils its meaning delicately, as usual; but it means business....However, I thought we should have been downed six months ago, yet herewe are still. It's like skating on rotten ice so fast that it neverbreaks. It's fun; it's exciting. And I believe if we go on skating fast,it won't break at all. You see, the government are getting cleverer andcleverer themselves, which will help them to do it skilfully. Chestersays his head really does feel clearer after taking the Course; he saysso in private life, I mean, not only when he's soft-soaping the public."

  "He'll need," said Anthony, "a jolly clear head before he's through withthis job. With every door-step in our towns and villages piled withexposed babies ... it's worse than China. Much worse, because I believein China they don't get put on door-steps, but left harmlessly out ofthe way in open fields and no one meddles with them. It's becoming apublic nuisance."

  "There is a new branch at the Ministry," said Kitty, "which is concernedexclusively with Uncertificated Babies, how to deal with them."

  "An' how _do_ they deal with them, the poor little ducks?" enquiredPansy, who had just come in from the garden looking more than usuallygay and lovely and fantastic in a pink sunbonnet and the kind of dressaffected by milkmaids in a chorus.

  Kitty looked at her thoughtfully.

  "I should hardly like to tell you. You mightn't like it. Besides, it's aprivate department, like the secret room in jam factories where theymake the pips. No, Pansy love, I can't possibly tell you.... But they_do_ deal with them, quite effectively."

  Pansy tossed her Cheeper up and down to a gentle music-hall ditty.

  "Who'll buy babies-- Babies better dead? Here's every mental category, From C3 down to Z...."

  It was a taking song as she crooned it on the stage, nursing an infanton each arm, and with a baby-chorus crying behind her.

  4

  After breakfast on Sunday morning
Kitty remarked that she was going bytrain to Beaconsfield, where she had arranged to meet Chester for a walkthrough Burnham Beeches. She as a rule made no secret of her walks withChester, only occasionally, when self-consciousness took her. After all,why should she? One went walks with all sorts of people, with any man orwoman who liked walking and talking and whom one liked as a companion;it implied nothing. Kitty at times, with all it meant in this instanceburning and alive in her consciousness, had to pause to tell herself howlittle it did imply to others, how she might mention it freely andcasually, without fear. Yet might she? The intimacy of the Minister of aDepartment with one of his clerks _was_, no doubt, out of the ordinary,not quite like other intimacies; perhaps it did seem odd, and implythings. Perhaps Kitty might have thought so herself, in another case.

  She announced her plan this morning with an extra note of casualness inher voice.

  Pansy said, "Oh, you two. You'll be goin' baby-huntin' in the ditches, Ishould think, instead of pickin' primroses. I should say you jolly wellought, and you'd better take the Cheeper's pram with you."

  Anthony said, "Exactly what I always try _not_ to do, going out onSundays with the people from my shop. It spoils the Sabbath rest, thePisgah's mountain touch. You'd much better come out with Cyril and Pansyand me."

  "I," said Cyril, in his detached manner, "shall be going to Mass."

  5

  They walked up through the depraved mushroom growth round Beaconsfieldstation to the old town that city set on a hill, lying wide andspacious, with its four Ends stretched out like a cross. OldBeaconsfield is an enchanted city; as it was in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries, so it is to-day, an ancient country town, full ofbrick walls and old houses, and courtyards and coaching inns, anddignity and romance and great elms. But they left it behind them, andtook the lane that runs to Hedgerley, with the cold April wind in theirfaces.

  They came, four miles on, to the forest of great beeches, where broadglades and grassy rides run in and out through thickets of wildundergrowth and bracken, and ancient twisted boles and slim smoothgrey-green stems are set close together under a rustling singing roof ofbrilliant green, the young, new-born, radiant green of beeches in April.In every hollow and dip of the forest's mossy floor, primroses glimmeredin pale pools.

  They sat down by one of these pools to have their lunch.

  After lunch they lay on there and smoked. Chester lay on his back, hishands clasped behind his head, staring up at the green roof. Kitty, herround chin cupped in her two hands, lay and watched his lean, sallow,clever face, foreshortened, with the shadows of the leaves moving on itand his eyes screwed against the sun.

  "Kitty," said Chester presently, "I want to talk to you."

  "M--m." Kitty, having finished her cigarette, was chewing grass.

  He sat up and looked at her, and as he looked his face grew more sallowand his smile died. He stabbed into the soft, damp earth with his stick,and frowned.

  "It's this, my dear. I can't go on any longer with this--this farce. Wemust end it. I've been meaning to tell you so for some time, but Ithought I'd give it a fair trial, just to satisfy us both. Well, we'vegiven it a trial, and it won't work. It isn't good enough. We've got tobe more to each other--or less. This--this beastly half-way house wasall right for a bit; but we've got on too far now for it.... I shouldlike to know what _you_ think about it."

  Kitty pulled a primrose to pieces, petal by petal, before she answered.

  "One thing I think," she said slowly, "is that I'm different from you.Or is it that women are different from men? Never mind; it doesn'treally matter which. But I fancy it's women and men. Anyhow there it is.And the difference is that for me a half-way house would always bebetter than nothing, while for you it would be worse. Men seem to valuebeing married so much more than women do--and friendship, going abouttogether, having each other to talk to and play with, and all that,seems to matter to them so little. Love seems to take different formswith men and women, and to want different ways of expression.... So it'snot much use trying to understand one another about it.... That's thechief thing I think, Nicky."

  He moved impatiently.

  "In fact, you're contented with the present state of things."

  "Oh, no. Not a bit. I want much more. But--if it's all we can have...."

  "It isn't," he said. "We can get married."

  She shook her head, with decision.

  "No. No. No."

  "Quite quietly," he pleaded. "No one would know but ourselves and theregistrar and a witness whom we'd murder after the ceremony. Whyshouldn't we? What are the reasons why not? There are only two; youought to marry a certificated person and have an intelligent family; andI oughtn't to have a family at all. Well, you say you don't mean tomarry anyone else; so you may as well marry me. So much for the firstreason. And of course we wouldn't have a family; so much for the second.Well, then?"

  "There's a third," said Kitty. "And the only important one. There's thelook of the thing. I don't care how many people we murder, the secretwill leak out. Things always do leak out. Never, in the course oftwenty-nine years of endeavour, have I been able to keep anything shadyfrom coming to light sooner or later. It isn't done. You ought to knowthat, as a government servant. Has any government ever succeeded inkeeping its own dark doings secret for long? No; they come outlike--like flowers pushing up towards daylight; and then there's thedevil to pay. All our shadiest departmental transactions emerge one byone; nothing is hid that shall not be revealed. And our marriage wouldbe the same. Be sure our sin would find us out. And that would be theend of your career, and probably of the Ministry as well; I believe theMinistry will stand or fall with you; and it's already prettytottery.... It's a pity you can't get exemption; but of course your caseis one in which it's absolutely never given.... No, we can't do thisthing. You're the Minister of Brains first, and poor Nicky Chester, whowould like to marry his girl, a long, long way behind. And the poor girlwho would like to marry Nicky Chester--she's not got to count at all....I don't want to be high-falutin and to talk about principles, only tohave a little sense."

  He was watching her moodily from under bent brows, leaning back againsta beech-trunk and pulling up little handfuls of damp moss with his thin,unusual fingers.

  "Sense," he repeated. "It is sense, to have what one wants, if itdoesn't harm anything or anyone. And I'll tell you another thing--nothaving it is rotting me up altogether--me and my work. I didn't want tofall in love again; I hoped I'd done with all that; I tried not to takeany notice of you. But it was no go, and I can't fall out again, and I'mdead sick of going on like this. And my experience of life, both privateand public, has been longer than yours, and, as it happens, I've knownof several transactions which haven't come to light and never will; I'veperpetrated some myself in the Ministry, which even that clear lightwhich beats upon a hotel hasn't yet exposed, and, heaven helping us,won't. You don't suppose all the dark secrets of the war ever came out?Of course they didn't. There are some that will wait till ... well, tillthe next war, let's say.... Kitty, let's try it. It's worth the risk,surely. Let's be sporting. We're missing--we're missing the best thingin the world, just out of funk. I thought you always did things, justfor the sake of doing them. I thought you never turned your back onlife. It isn't like you."

  "Oh," murmured Kitty. "Life.... There's so much of that. This is justone thing out of it."

  "While you want it," he returned, indubitably correct as to this, "itseems a long way the most important thing."

  "It does," she agreed. "There's no comparison at all.... It's queer,isn't it, how strong it is, this odd, desperate wanting of one personout of all the world. It's an extraordinary, enormously strong thing....But there _are_ other things. There are jokes, and shops, and music, andplays, and pictures, and nice clothes, and Russian politics, and absurdpeople, and Greek poetry, and the world's failures caged together on oneisland, and things to eat and to drink, and our careers, and primrosesin woods, and the censor.... Good gracious, it's all like an idiotic,g
lorified revue. We mustn't let the one thing, just because it mattersmost, matter alone. It's so commonplace. Our hearts aren't broken, andwon't break. We're out to have a good time, and we'll let love andmarriage go to the--anywhere they like, if we can't have them.... By theway, if it's any comfort to you (it is to me) I shouldn't make at all agood wife; I'm much nicer as a friend. I want too much out of life. I'mgrasping and selfish. You'd find me tiring."

  "I do," he returned. "You're tiring me to death now. I've plenty offriends already, thank you. And what does it matter to me what sort of awife you'd make? You talk as if you were refusing a secretarialappointment. I want _you_, not a wife."

  "You've got me," said Kitty, "only not as a wife.... If that's no use toyou, we'll give it up. Nicky, I suppose we'd _better_ give it up. Itisn't working. I'll go right away. I'll get another job."

  "No," he said gloomily. "There's no need for that. Why should you messup your career? We needn't meet. We shouldn't naturally meet, unless wemade opportunities. I think you're right, that we'd better not meet.What's the good of meeting, just to repeat this sort of scene again andagain, and hurt each other? We've reached the breaking point; I can'tbear any more.... I think we'd better leave it that you let me know whenyou change your mind and will marry me. You will, won't you, when youdo?"

  "Yes," said Kitty, and could say no more than that because she was onthe edge of tears.

  For a moment they clung together, holding each other close. He said, "Mydearest dear, I love you. Can't you?... can't you?..." and shewhispered, very pale, "I love you. I think I worship you," and laid hercheek on his hand, so that he felt her tears.

  They walked on together through the April afternoon, and it cried tothem like a child whom they were betraying and forsaking. There wouldnot be another day like this day, through all the lovely awakeningspring and summer.

  6

  Ivy and Betty Delmer, who had been spending the afternoon atBeaconsfield, saw them at Beaconsfield station.

  Betty said, "Surely that's your Minister with Miss Grammont."

  Ivy looked at them, down the length of the platform. It seemed to herthat Miss Grammont's walk with the Minister hadn't been altogether asuccess; they both looked so pale and tired, and Miss Grammont, surely,had been crying.

  Something suddenly passed into Ivy's consciousness about these twopeople whom she admired, and her soft mouth dropped open a little withthe amazement of her thoughts. The Minister--and Miss Grammont! It wassurely incredible. Ministers didn't; they were too high, too superior.Besides, what had love to do with this Minister, who was uncertificatedfor matrimony? Ivy told herself she was mistaken, she had misread thelook with which they had looked at each other as they parted.

  "Are they thick?" Betty was asking, with careless, inquisitive interest.Betty wouldn't think it odd; Betty didn't know anything about ministersin general or this minister in particular.

  "Oh, I think they know each other quite well," replied Ivy. "MissGrammont's jolly clever, you know. I shouldn't wonder if he talks aboutquite important things to her."

  "How dull," returned Betty, swinging her primroses. "Don't let's getinto the same carriage as her. I never know if I know those End Housepeople or not; Daddy and mother think I don't, and it's awkward.... I'drather enjoy knowing Miss Ponsonby and that ducky baby, even if theyaren't respectable, she looks so sweet, and I'd like to hear all aboutthe stage. But I've no use for your Miss Grammont. Her clothes are allright, but I'm sure she's stuck up.... Fancy going out for Sunday withthe Minister of a government department! Rather her than me."

  Ivy said, "Don't you worry, my child. No Minister'll ever trouble _you_to go out with him. As for Chester, I should think he'd have youexecuted after one talk; he's great on ridding the world of the mentallydeficient." But what she was thinking was, "How fearfully interesting ifthere is anything between them." She wondered what the other people atthe office thought about it, or if they had ever thought about it atall.