Wolf was silent for a second. Then he said slowly, contemplating his half-shaven face in the mirror with as much detachment as if it had been a cat’s saucer of milk, “Well, we might go in to see them next Saturday. They wouldn’t be leaving till the afternoon, I suppose. We could all have lunch at the Burden.”

“Wolf,” she cried, sitting up straight in bed⁠—a movement that brought her head into the square of his mirror⁠—“Wolf! Why can’t we spend some of our money in a weekend at the Burden? Not this week, of course; but next week, just as they’re coming back! Oh, I would love that so much!”

A wave of sadness swept over him. It was on the tip of his tongue to reply to her in her own words of last Sunday⁠—“It’s too late, my dear, it’s too late!” For that beach in front of Brunswick Terrace came back to him, with the cries of the fish-sellers, with the dazzling sun-path on the breaking sea, with the wet planks and the painted boats. Ay, how he would love to see it all again⁠—but who was he to see it? Hollow! Hollow! A drifting husk, empty of purpose and hope!