CHAPTER I<br > i<br > On a sunny August morning Joanna Stuart said to herself without<br > warning， yet without surprise:<br > "I can t cope."<br > She had just completed a series of telephone calls fielding a team<br > of dtlvers for the old ladies monthly tea party and she was still sit-<br > ring in the hall， on the uptight chair beside the telephone.<br > Joanna formed the words with her llps， staring ahead of her at the<br > white front door with its litsle wooden panes of window， but seeing<br > a swirling abstract which even as she watched it moved faster and<br > faster.<br > ~I---can t --cope."<br > It wasn t the usual exaggeration which she had used， and heard<br > used， a hundred times and more during the course of her good<br > works， it was a solemn statement of fact.<br > It w~s also a revelation， in the sense that yesmrday--even two min-<br > utes age-she had had no inkling of it.<br > But it hadn t really come out of the blue， it was the culmination<br >of a process which had been going on for a long time. For a long<br >time them had been a scream deep down inside her which was get-<br >ting closer mad closer to her thr3at and which when it broke surface<br >would ring out all over the district and everyone would know what<br >she really was.<br > %Vhat am I， really?" she always ashed herself， as she felt the<br >scream rising， searching the memories which ran along as constant<br >accompaniment to her extrovert days， of a time when she and Peter<br >and their home had been the centre of her life and she and Peter<br >had done things solely to please themselves. As she presided over her<br >committees and chatted up her old ladies， it was as if a home movie<br >