She waived references.

The two as they walked to the station in Kensington High Street could not help thinking that this way of putting it was lofty.  Even Mrs. Arbuthnot, spendthrift of excuses for lapses, thought Mrs. Fisher might have used other words; and Mrs. Wilkins, by the time she got to the station, and the walk and the struggle on the crowded pavement with other people’s umbrellas had warmed her blood, actually suggested waiving Mrs. Fisher.

“If there is any waiving to be done, do let us be the ones who waive,” she said eagerly.

But Mrs. Arbuthnot, as usual, held on to Mrs. Wilkins; and presently, having cooled down in the train, Mrs. Wilkins announced that at San Salvatore Mrs. Fisher would find her level.  “I see her finding her level there,” she said, her eyes very bright.

Whereupon Mrs. Arbuthnot, sitting with her quiet hands folded, turned over in her mind how best she could help Mrs. Wilkins not to see quite so much; or at least, if she must see, to see in silence.

Chapter 4

It had been arranged that Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins, traveling together, should arrive at San Salvatore on the evening of March 31st—­the owner, who told them how to get there, appreciated their disinclination to begin their time in it on April 1st—­and Lady Caroline and Mrs. Fisher, as yet unacquainted and therefore under no obligations to bore each other on the journey, for only towards the end would they find out by a process of sifting who they were, were to arrive on the mourning of April 2nd.  In this way everything would be got nicely ready for the two who seemed, in spite of the equality of the sharing, yet to have something about them of guests.

There were disagreeable incidents towards the end of March, when Mrs. Wilkins, her heart in her mouth and her face a mixture of guilt, terror and determination, told her husband that she had been invited to Italy, and he declined to believe it.  Of course he declined to believe it.  Nobody had ever invited his wife to Italy before.  There was no precedent.  He required proofs.  The only proof was Mrs. Arbuthnot, and Mrs. Wilkins had produced her; but after what entreaties, what passionate persuading!  Mrs. Arbuthnot had not imagined she would have to face Mr. Wilkins and say things to him that were short of the truth, and it brought home to her what she had for some time suspected, that she was slipping more and more away from God.

Indeed, the whole of March was filled with unpleasant, anxious moments.  It was an uneasy month.  Mrs. Arbuthnot’s conscience, made super-sensitive by years of pampering, could not reconcile what she was doing with its own high standard of what was right.  It gave her little peace.  It nudged her at her prayers.  It punctuated her entreaties for divine guidance with disconcerting questions, such as, “Are you not a hypocrite?  Do you really mean that?  Would you not, frankly, be disappointed if that prayer were granted?”