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Hester spent many hours with Rosamond and became fond of her in a distant, nonconfiding sort of way. Callan-dra's words about a brave, protective smile came to her sharply on several occasions, most particularly one late afternoon as they sat by the fire and made light, trivial conversation. Ursula Wadham was visiting, full of excitement and plans for the time when she would be married to Menard. She babbled on, facing Rosamond but apparently not seeing anything deeper than the perfect complexion, the carefully dressed hair and the rich afternoon gown. To her Rosamond had everything a woman could desire, a wealthy and titled husband, a strong child, beauty, good health and sufficient talent in the arts of pleasing. What else was there to desire?

Hester listened to Rosamond agreeing to all the plans, how exciting it would be and how happy the future looked, and she saw behind the dark eyes no gleam of confidence and hope, only a sense of loss, a loneliness and a kind of desperate courage that keeps going because it knows no way to stop. She smiled because it brought her peace, it prevented questions and it preserved a shred of pride.

Lovel was busy. At least he had purpose and as long as he was fulfilling it any darker emotion was held at bay. Only at the di

With Menard it was also anger, but a sharp awareness, too, of something he saw as injustice; past now in act, but the residue still affecting him. Had he tidied up too often after Joscelin, his mother's favorite, protecting her from the truth that he was a cheat? Or was it himself he protected, and the family name?

Only with Callandra did she feel relaxed, but it did on one occasion cross her mind to wonder whether Callandra's comfort with herself was the result of many years' happiness or the resolution within her nature of its warring elements, not a gift but an art. It was one evening when they had taken a light supper in Callandra's sitting room instead of di

Now she realized how blindly she had leaped to such a shortsighted conclusion.

Callandra must have seen the idea waken in her eyes. She smiled with a touch of wryness, and a gentle humor in her face.

"You have a great deal of courage, Hester, and a hunger for life which is a far richer blessing than you think now- but, my dear, you are sometimes very naive. There are many kinds of misery, and many kinds of fortitude, and you should not allow your awareness of one to build to the value of another. You have an intense desire, a passion, to make people's lives better. Be aware that you can truly help people only by aiding them to become what they are, not what you are. I have heard you say 'If I were you, I would do this-or that.' T am never 'you'-and my solutions may not be yours."

Hester remembered the wretched policeman who had told her she was domineering, overbearing and several other unpleasant things.

Callandra smiled. "Remember, my dear, you are dealing with the world as it is, not as you believe, maybe rightly, that it ought to be. There will be a great many things you can achieve not by attacking them but with a little patience and a modicum of flattery. Stop to consider what it is you really want, rather than pursuing your anger or your vanity to charge in. So often we leap to passionate judgments-when if we but knew the one thing more, they would be so different."

Hester was tempted to laugh, in spite of having heard very clearly what Callandra had said, and perceiving the truth of it.

"I know," Callandra agreed quickly. "I preach much better than I practice. But believe me, when I want something enough, I have the patience to bide my time and think how I can bring it about.''

"I'll try," Hester promised, and she did mean it. "That miserable policeman will not be right-I shall not allow him to be right.''

"I beg your pardon?"



"I met him when I was out walking," Hester explained. "He said I was overbearing and opinionated, or something like that."

Callandra's eyebrows shot up and she did not even attempt to keep a straight face.

"Did he really? What temerity! And what perception, on such a short acquaintance. And what did you think of him, may I ask?"

"An incompetent and insufferable nincompoop!"

"Which of course you told him?"

Hester glared back at her. "Certainly!"

"Quite so. I think he had more of the right of it than you did. I don't think he is incompetent. He has been given an extremely difficult task. There were a great many people who might have hated Joscelin, and it will be exceedingly difficult for a policeman, with all his disadvantages, to discover which one it was-and even harder, I imagine, to prove it."

"You mean, you think-" Hester left it unsaid, hanging in the air.

"I do," Callandra replied. "Now come, we must settle what you are to do with yourself. I shall write to certain friends I have, and I have little doubt, if you hold a civil tongue in your head, refrain from expressing your opinion of men in general and of Her Majesty's Army's generals in particular, we may obtain for you a position in hospital administration which will not only be satisfying to you but also to those who are unfortunate enough to be ill."

"Thank you." Hester smiled. "I am very grateful." She looked down in her lap for a moment, then up at Callandra and her eyes sparkled. "I really do not mind walking two paces behind a man, you know-if only I can find one who can walk two paces faster than I! It is being tied at the knees by convention I hate-and having to pretend I am lame to suit someone else's vanity."

Callandra shook her head very slowly, amusement and sadness sharp in her face. "I know. Perhaps you will have to fall a few times, and have someone else pick you up, before you will learn a more equable pace. But do not walk slowly simply for company-ever. Not even God would wish you to be unequally yoked and result in destroying both of you-in fact God least of all."

Hester sat back and smiled, lifting up her knees and hugging them in a most unladylike fashion. "I daresay I shall fall many times-and look excessively foolish-and give rise to a good deal of hilarity among those who dislike me-but that is still better than not trying."

"Indeed it is," Callandra agreed. "But you would do it anyway."