Mollie crossed the room and talked to Mrs. Connell. I saw Mrs. Connell pouring out a long confidence, and Mollie nodding her head from time to time.
George came over to me.
‘Are you impressed, Helen?’ he asked with his wide smile. ‘Does the goddess thrill you?’
I said:
‘No, I am afraid she doesn’t. I liked her better at a distance.’
‘Poor old Hugo,’ said George. ‘He is a dear goose, you know—but I don’t think we need worry.’
I felt extraordinarily grateful to George for saying that. It seemed somehow to make it all right. I had been afraid all day, and before that day; an uncomfortable, unformulated fear that something had been going to happen to Hugo. I had not defined my feeling, and it had in an odd way become less, since Paulina came to tea, and I had seen her myself. What George said comforted me much more. It was like waking up from bad dreams. I felt suddenly very fond of George, fonder than usual.
After tea, when the Connells had gone, I walked back with George and Mollie to their flat.
‘I am rather sorry for that girl,’ said Mollie.
‘Yes, the mother is a terror,’ agreed George, answering, as he often did, what Mollie had felt and not said.