"I don't think I quite understand all you're saying," said Victoria Worsley.
Sylvia brought her hand from beneath the bedclothes and took her friend's.
"Oh, but I like to understand what people are saying," Mrs. Worsley insisted. "That's why we never go abroad for our holidays. But, Sylvia, about being owned, which is where I stopped understanding. Lennie doesn't own me."
"No, you own _him_, but I don't own Philip."
"I expect you will, my dear, after you've been married a little longer."
"You think I shall acquire him in monthly instalments. I should find at the end the cost too much in repairs, like Fred Organ."
"Hube's brother, the cabman. Don't you remember?"
"Oh, of course, how silly of me! I thought it might be an Italian you met at Sirene. You've made me feel quite sad, Sylvia. I always want everybody to be happy," she sighed. "I am happy--perfectly happy--in spite of being married."
"Nobody's happy because of being married," Sylvia enunciated, rather sententiously.
"What nonsense you talk, and you're only just eighteen!"
"That's why I talk nonsense," Sylvia said, "but all the same it's very true nonsense. You and Lennie couldn't have ever been anything but happy."
"Darling Lennie, I think it must be because he's so stupid. I wonder if he's smoking in bed. He always does if I leave him to go and talk to anybody. Good night, dear."
Sylvia returned to her book, wondering more than ever how she could have supposed a year ago that she could follow Victoria Worsley along the pathway of her simple and happy life.
The whole family from Arbour End came to London for the ten days before term began, and Sylvia stayed with them at a hotel. Gladys and Enid had to get their new frocks, and certain gaps in Hercules's education had to be filled up, such as visiting the Zoo and the Tower of London and the Great Wheel at Earl's Court. Sylvia and the twins searched in vain for the Hall of a Thousand and One Marvels, but they found Mabel selling Turkish Delight by herself at a small stall in another part of the Exhibition. Sylvia thought the best way of showing her penitence for the heartless way she had treated her was to buy as much Turkish Delight as could possibly be carried away, since she probably received a percentage on the takings. Mabel seemed to bear no resentment, but she was rather shy, because she mistook the twins for Sylvia's sisters-in-law and therefore avoided the only topic upon which she could talk freely, which was men. They left the florid and accommodating creature with a callow youth who was leaning familiarly across the counter and smacking with a cane his banana-colored boots; then they ate as much Turkish Delight as they could and divided the rest among some ducks and the Kaffirs in the kraal.