Would you care to come to church with me on Sunday? I shall be ready at 10.15. I do hope you will come this week.
Dear Judith,
I thought you did not look quite yourself at lunch to-day. If there is anything worrying you, perhaps I might help you? Or if you are tired, come and rest in my armchair. I shall be working and will not disturb you.
Yours Mabel.
P.S. It’s all this rushing about that wears you out and makes you unfit for work.
M.F.
Mabel wrote her advice now, more often than she dared speak it.
Mabel, always pathetic, so that you could never entirely disregard her; always grotesque and untouched by charm so that it was impossible to think of her or look at her without revulsion; so that the whole thing was a tedious and barren self-discipline.
Mabel little by little relinquishing the effort to draw Judith into her life and desperately endeavoring to fit herself into Judith’s: chattering to other girls, trying to be amused by their jokes, to share their enthusiasms and illusions; pretending to have a gay home-life, full of interesting friends and fun; pretending to laugh at the thought of work and to treat lightly that nightmare of the Tripos which crushed her to the earth.