"I hope, Miss Letts, that she no longer talks about her silly fancies."
"She has said nothing to me in that respect for a considerable period, Mrs. Flint."
"All very young children have fancies, but such things are dangerous when they grow older."
"I agree with you."
Nevertheless the fountain continued to flash in the sun, and births, deaths, weddings, love and hate continued to play their part in March Square.
II
Barbara, groping about in the desolation of having no one to grope with her, discovered that her Friend came now less frequently to see her. She was even beginning to wonder whether he had ever really come at all. She had perhaps imagined him just as on occasion she would imagine her doll, Jane, the Queen of England, or her afternoon tea the most wonderful meal, with sausages, blackberry jam and chocolates. Young though, she was, she was able to realise that this imagination of hers was capable de tout, and that every one older than herself said that it was wicked; therefore was her Friend, perhaps, wicked also.
And yet, if the dark curtains that veiled the nursery windows at night, if the glimmering shape of the picture-frames, if the square black sides of the dolls' house were real, real also was the figure of her Friend, real his arousal in her of all the memories of the old days before she was Barbara Flint at all—real, too, his love, his care, his protection; as real, yes, as Miss Letts's bony figure. It was all very puzzling. But he did not come now as in the old days.
Barbara played very often in the gardens in the middle of the Square, but because she was a timid little girl she did not make many friends. She knew many of the other children who played there, and sometimes she shared in their games; but her sensitive feelings were so easily hurt, she frequently retired in tears. Every day on going into the garden she looked about her, hoping that she would find before she left it again some one whom it would be possible to worship. She tried on several occasions to erect altars, but our English temperament is against public display, and she was misunderstood.
Then, quite suddenly, as though she had sprung out of the fountain, Mary Adams was there. Mary Adams was aged nine, and her difference from Barbara Flint was that, whereas Barbara craved for affection, she craved for attention: the two demands can be easily confused. Mary Adams was the only child of an aged philosopher, Mr. Adams, who, contrary to all that philosophy teaches, had married a young wife. The young wife, pleased that Mary was so unlike her father, made much of her, and Mary was delighted to be made much of. She was a little girl with flaxen hair, blue eyes, and a fine pink-and-white colouring. In a few years' time she will be so sure of the attention that her appearance is winning for her that she will make no effort to secure adherents, but just now she is not sufficiently confident—she must take trouble. She took trouble with Barbara.