Her business in life was to avoid
unpleasantness, to extract the honey from every flower, but above all to
be admired, praised, preferred.
At first with her pleasure at Barbara's adoration she had found, within
herself, a truly alarming desire to be "good." It might, after all, be
rather amusing to be, in strict reality, all the fine things that
Barbara considered her. She endeavoured for a week or two to adjust
herself to this point of view, to consider, however slightly, whether
it were right or wrong to do something that she particularly wished to
do.
But she found it very tiresome. The effort spoilt her temper, and no one
seemed to notice any change. She might as well be bad as good were there
no one present to perceive the difference. She gave it up, and, from
that moment found that she suffered Barbara less gladly than before.
Meanwhile, in Barbara also strange forces had been at work. She found
that her imagination (making up stories) simply, in spite of all the
Mary Adamses in the world, refused to stop. Still would the almond tree
and the fountain, the gold dust on the roofs of the houses when the sun
was setting, the racing hurry of rain drops down the window-pane, the
funny old woman with the red shawl who brought plants round in a
wheelbarrow, start her story telling.
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