of British women work for their bread," Fido is telling Harry, "and often at gruelling, repetitive tasks such as chain-making or mining at the pit brow."
"Ah, poor men's wives and daughters, that's quite another thing," says Harry. "But when it comes to women of the middling or upper orders—"
She interrupts him. "At our Employment Register, I'm constantly meeting the pathetic dependents of gentlemen whose fortunes have dwindled in the stocks, or who've otherwise failed to make provision."
"Girls like Nan and Nell?" asks Helen. She can see her husband's shoulders rise, and she almost giggles.
"Of course your daughters are charmingly accomplished," Fido says hastily. Then, after a moment, she goes on: "But to what profession could they turn their untrained hands if by any chance that dark day came? I suggest that it's no natural incapacity, but only custom and law that would prevent them from working in shops or offices, administering institutions or estates..."
Harry lets out a huff of breath. "I don't think I'll have much trouble finding my girls husbands."
My girls, says he, Helen thinks, fuming, as if they sprang from his thigh!
"Forty-three per cent of Englishwomen over the age of twenty are single," Fido announces.
The statistic makes him stare.
"I declare, Fido, you're a regular Blue Book," murmurs Helen.
"Ah," says Harry, holding up one massive finger, "but if you and your fellow Utopians were to train up well born girls, to render them independent of my sex—if you succeeded in turning single life into a pleasant highway, and marriage just one thorny path opening off it—then why would they marry at all?"
A pause. Fido chews her lip. "Matrimony is the special and honourable calling of most women, Admiral, but from lack of personal experience, I can hardly discourse on its allure."
Harry holds her gaze for a moment, then lets out a laugh.
Helen's been forgetting how much these two liked each other, in the old days. He's always respected her mind more than mine, she thinks, a little rueful.
"It's been a pleasure, Miss Faithfull. After all this time. Now I'm afraid I have letters to write," he says, rising.
As soon as the two women are alone, the silence clots like blood. Helen makes herself set down her cup and begin her speech. "The other day at your house, my dearest, in a moment of frailty for which I've been excoriating myself—"
"It was a long moment."
Helen's cheeks are flaming; she's lost control of this scene already.
"Your conscience is your own affair, I suppose." Fido speaks with a rigid throat. "But I'd have expected more of your manners."
Manners? Is this what it comes down to—an offence against English etiquette? Then she looks hard at Fido—the averted eyes, the compressed lips—and understands. The offence is against friendship. She's hurt that I didn't tell her everything before, she realizes; she can't bear the fact that it was her sofa. On impulse, she falls to her knees.
"Whatever are you doing?" Fido barks.
For a second, Helen doubts her strategy—and then decides that too much is better than too little. "Begging your pardon most humbly and sorrowfully," she answers, very low. Like some scolded dog, she lays her head on Fido's navy-blue skirt. "You do right to cast coals," she whispers. "But let me just say that the thing was not ... premeditated."
A pause. "Really?"
Aha, thinks Helen: she wants nothing more than to forgive me. She's been longing to let herself take me back! She sits on her heels, wipes one dry eye.
"Get up, Little One. Come sit by me. I blame myself, in some ways," says Fido into her handkerchief.
Helen stares: whatever can she mean?
"After all, it was I who urged you to make the decisive break," says Fido in a low whisper. "Perhaps I was naive; perhaps my ignorance of the other sex blinded me to the dangers. When a battle-hardened veteran sees all he longs for about to be snatched away—"
She thinks it was all Anderson. She's as gullible as a child, on certain subjects, Helen marvels. She starts nodding. "He was very fierce..."
Fido seizes her by the wrist. "And I was stupid enough to leave you alone with him, in my own drawing-room. My darling—did he hurt you?"
"No, no." Helen's gone too far. What, does Fido know so little of men that she thinks them all savages? Helen looks into her satin lap. How much can she risk admitting? "Perhaps it's not the male heart that's your blind spot, Fido, but the female." A pause. "When I said I meant to put a