Soon afterwards, the following incident. One of the sub-editors at the office is working with Ella on a series of articles giving advice about emotional problems — the problems which arise most often in the letters which come in. Ella and this man spend several evenings together at the office. There are to be six articles, and each has two titles, an official one and one for jocular use by Ella and her colleague. For instance, Do you sometimes feel Bored with Your Home? is for Ella and Jack: Help! I’m going round the bend. And: The Husband who neglects his Family, becomes My Husband sleeps around. And so on. Both Ella and Jack laugh a great deal, and make fun of the over-simple style of the articles, yet they write them carefully, taking trouble with them. They both know their joking is because of the unhappiness and frustration of the letters which pour into the office, and which they do not believe their articles will do anything to alleviate.

On the last evening of their collaboration Jack drives Ella home. He is married, has three children, is aged about thirty. Ella likes him very much. She offers him a drink, he goes upstairs with her. She knows the moment will soon approach when he will invite her to make love. She is thinking: But I’m not attracted to him. But I might be, if only I could shake off the shadow of Paul. How do I know I won’t be attracted to him once I’m in bed? After all, I was not immediately attracted to Paul. This last thought surprises her. She sits listening, while the young man talks and entertains her, and is thinking: Paul always used to say, joking, but really serious, that I had not been in love with him at first. Now I say it myself. But I don’t think it’s true. I probably only say it because he said it … but no wonder I can never work up any interest in a man if I’m thinking all the time of Paul.

Ella goes to bed with Jack. She classifies him as the efficient type of lover. ‘The man who is not sensual, has learned love-making out of a book, probably called How to Satisfy Your Wife.’ He gets his pleasure from having got a woman into bed, not from sex itself.

These two are cheerful, friendly, continuing the good sense of their work together in the office. Yet Ella is fighting down a need to cry. She is familiar with this sudden depression and combats it thus: It’s not my depression at all; it is guilt, but not my guilt; it is the guilt from the past, it has to do with the double standard which I repudiate.