The company of their own sex, Edith reflected, was what drove many women into marriage.

Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.

I have been too harsh on women, she thought, because I understand them better than I understand men. I know their watchfulness, their patience, their need to advertise themselves as successful. Their need never to admit to a failure. I know all that because I am one of them.

Women share their sadness, thought Edith. Their joy they like to show off to one another. Victory, triumph over the odds, calls for an audience. And that air of bustle and exigence sometimes affected by the sexually loquacious - that is for the benefit of other women. No solidarity then.

A complete woman is probably not a very admirable creature. She is manipulative, uses other people to get her own way, and works within whatever system she is in.

It will be a pity if women in the more conventional mould are to be phased out, for there will never be anyone to go home to.