She happened to know that Miss Cursiter was only waiting for an opportunity like this to rid herself for ever of the little obstructive.

She knew too that once they had ceased to fill their particular notch in it, the world had no further use for people like Miss Quincey; that she, Rhoda Vivian, belonged to the new race whose eternal destiny was to precipitate their doom.

It was the first time that Rhoda had thought of it in that light; the first time indeed that she had greatly concerned herself with any career beside her own.

She sat for a few minutes talking to Miss Quincey and thinking as she talked.

Perhaps she was wondering how she would like to be forty-five and incompetent; to be overtaken on the terrible middle-way; to feel the hurrying generations after her, their breath on her shoulders, their feet on her heels; to have no hope; to see Mrs.Moon sitting before her, immovable and symbolic, the image of what she must become.