No Fond Return of Love

Dulcie always found a public library a little upsetting, for one saw so many odd people there.

Perhaps all love had something of the ridiculous in it.

It seems to be a kind of lounge,' she added, tripping over a small footstool. The floor seemed to be littered with them, like toadstools.

Sitting aimlessly in bedrooms- often on the bed itself- is another characteristic feature of the English holidays. The meal was over and it was only twenty five past seven. 'The evening stretches before us,' Viola said gloomily.

What a pity we can’t make a cup of Ovaltine, was her last conscious thought. Life’s problems are often eased by hot milky drinks.

There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.

At Christmas, Dulcie thought, people seemed to lose their status as individuals in their own right and became, as it were, diminished in stature, mere units in families, when for the rest of the year they were bold and original and often the kind of people it is impossible to imagine having such ordinary everyday things as parents. Christmas put people in their places, sent them back to the nursery or cradle, almost.

Marriage isn’t necessarily the answer to all one’s problems,’ said Viola evasively, from which Dulcie concluded that he had not yet proposed to her.

When she got home there was a letter lying in the hall. She recognized Maurice’s handwriting on the envelope. He suggested that they should meet for lunch one day. ‘I do feel’, he wrote, ‘that we should remain friends, and it could be such a pleasant relationship—you’ve no idea how I sometimes long to have somebody to tell my troubles to, and if she were a charming and sympathetic woman, so much the better!’ Dulcie stood for a moment with the letter in her hand, remembering other letters in that extravagant writing, and then rejected the idea of herself in this role.

He certainly is very charming, but he makes me feel slightly ill at ease—almost as if I were a woman manquée, if there could be such a thing—you know, something lacking in me." "Oh, well, that's hardly his fault." "No," Dulcie agreed. "Mine, of course.

It seemed so much safer and more comfortable to live in the lives of other people - to observe their joys and sorrows with detachment as if one were watching a film or a play.