“Is that all we’re to hear about you?” said Helen. She stated that she was very old — forty last October, and her father had been a solicitor in the city who had gone bankrupt, for which reason she had never had much education — they lived in one place after another—but an elder brother used to lend her books.

“If I were to tell you everything — ” she stopped and smiled. “It would take too long,” she concluded. “I married when I was thirty, and I have two children. My husband is a scholar. And now — it’s your turn,” she nodded at Hirst.

“You’ve left out a great deal,” he reproved her.