Quartet in Autumn

by Barbara Pym

It certainly wasn’t Marcia’s duty to offer a home to Letty, just because she had a house of her own and lived by herself. Indignation welled up inside her, and she asked herself, why should I? But there was no answer to this question because nobody asked it. Nobody had even thought of it, let alone Letty herself.

It wasn’t really as if she minded being alone for she was used to it; it was rather the idea that people might find out that she had no invitation for the day and that they would pity her. She

He was irritated at Edwin taking what seemed to him like an unfair advantage, though where the advantage lay he could hardly have said.