Test Bank for Succeeding in Business with

Microsoft Excel 2013 A Problem-Solving Approach,

1st Edition download

https://testbankmall.com/product/test-bank-for-succeeding-in-
business-with-microsoft-excel-2013-a-problem-solving-
approach-1st-edition/

Find test banks or solution manuals at testbankmall.com today!

We have selected some products that you may be interested in
Click the link to download now or visit testbankmall.com
for more options!.

Solution Manual for Succeeding in Business with Microsoft

Excel 2013 A Problem-Solving Approach, 1st Edition

https://testbankmall.com/product/solution-manual-for-succeeding-in-
business-with-microsoft-excel-2013-a-problem-solving-approach-1st-
edition/

Solution Manual for Succeeding in Business with Microsoft

Excel 2010 A Problem-Solving Approach, 1st Edition

https://testbankmall.com/product/solution-manual-for-succeeding-in-
business-with-microsoft-excel-2010-a-problem-solving-approach-1st-
edition/

Solution Manual for Problem Solving Cases In Microsoft

Access & Excel 15th Edition

https://testbankmall.com/product/solution-manual-for-problem-solving-
cases-in-microsoft-access-excel-15th-edition/

Test Bank for CompTIA A+ Guide to IT Technical Support,

10th Edition, Jean Andrews, Joy Dark, Jill West

https://testbankmall.com/product/test-bank-for-comptia-a-guide-to-it-
technical-support-10th-edition-jean-andrews-joy-dark-jill-west-2/
Test Bank for Understanding Motivation and Emotion, 7th
Edition, Johnmarshall Reeve

https://testbankmall.com/product/test-bank-for-understanding-
motivation-and-emotion-7th-edition-johnmarshall-reeve/

Deviance 1st Edition Today Thio Calhoun Conyers Test Bank

https://testbankmall.com/product/deviance-1st-edition-today-thio-
calhoun-conyers-test-bank/

Test Bank for Wong’s Nursing Care of Infants and Children,

8th Edition: Marilyn J. Hockenberry

https://testbankmall.com/product/test-bank-for-wongs-nursing-care-of-
infants-and-children-8th-edition-marilyn-j-hockenberry/

Test Bank for Success in Practical/Vocational Nursing, 8th

Edition, Patricia Knecht,

https://testbankmall.com/product/test-bank-for-success-in-practical-
vocational-nursing-8th-edition-patricia-knecht/

Test Bank for MP Service Management 8th Edition

https://testbankmall.com/product/test-bank-for-mp-service-
management-8th-edition/
Fundamentals of Financial Accounting 5th Edition Phillips
Solutions Manual

https://testbankmall.com/product/fundamentals-of-financial-
accounting-5th-edition-phillips-solutions-manual/
 ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 92

10. The statistical function MODE returns the most frequently occurring value in a range of data.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 93

11. The technique used to fix certain rows while you scroll to other rows in a worksheet is called freezing
panes.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 95

12. A way to analyze the differences between two sets of data is to look at the percent difference of a value
in one data set compared with that value in the second data set.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 99

13. The syntax of the RANK.EQ function is as follows: RANK(number,sort,order).

ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 105 | 106

14. With the LARGE function, the argument called analysis describes the range of cells being evaluated.

ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 107

15. The SMALL function determines the nth smallest value in a range.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 109

16. The COUNTONLY function counts the number of items in a range that meet specified criteria.

ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 111

17. The values TRUE and FALSE are referred to as Boolean values.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 112

18. Relational operators are used to compare data.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 113

19. Result Seek uses an iterative approach to finding the right input that achieves the desired result, or
goal, in the dependent cell.

ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 134

20. Simulation is an analytical method that creates artificially generated data to imitate real data.

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 139

MODIFIED TRUE/FALSE
1. The median is the arithmetic value that occurs in the middle of a data set when organized from lowest
to highest, where half the values are less than and half the values are greater than the median value.
_________________________

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 80

2. The Paste option called Paste Special pastes a connection to the original cells, including the applied
formatting. _________________________

ANS: F
Paste Link
Paste link
paste link

PTS: 1 REF: 91

3. In the function RANK.EQ(number,ref,order), the number argument refers to the value to be ranked.
_________________________

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 105

4. The BIG function determines the nth largest value in a range. _________________________

ANS: F, LARGE

PTS: 1 REF: 107

5. To obtain the value for the lowest or highest Friction Coefficient values, the MIN and MAX functions
would suffice. _________________________

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 107

6. The critical argument is essentially a test that the data must meet in order for it to be counted in the
grouping. _________________________

ANS: F, criteria argument

PTS: 1 REF: 111

7. To determine if a value is greater than or equal to another value, you can use syntax operators.
_________________________

ANS: F, relational

PTS: 1 REF: 113

8. Wingdings are symbols that you can use as part of the criteria to search for text strings; each symbol
can be substituted for a character or set of characters. _________________________

ANS: F, Wildcards

PTS: 1 REF: 113

 9. The COUNTIF function accommodates a(n) single contiguous range argument.
_________________________

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 116

10. In the SUMIF function, the criteria argument identifies the cell range where the criteria are located.
_________________________

ANS: F, range

PTS: 1 REF: 118

11. The ADDIF function adds all the values in a range that meet specified criteria.
_________________________

ANS: F, SUMIF

PTS: 1 REF: 118

12. The Format Cells dialog box, which can be opened from the Number group Dialog Box Launcher on
the HOME tab, provides many options for changing the display of cell values.
_________________________

ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 125

13. Excel uses the Goal Find tool to try various input values in order to calculate the required input to
achieve your desired outcome. _________________________

ANS: F, Goal Seek

PTS: 1 REF: 131

14. The RANDOM function randomly assigns a number between two specified values.
_________________________

ANS: F, RANDBETWEEN

PTS: 1 REF: 140

15. You can recalculate a worksheet at any time by pressing the F9 function key or by selecting the
Refresh button found in the Calculation group on the FORMULAS tab on the ribbon.
_________________________

ANS: F, Calculate Now

PTS: 1 REF: 142

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. Microsoft Excel allows you to use ____, such as LARGE, SMALL, and RANK.EQ, that help you to
structure and analyze data in meaningful ways.
a. functions c. rules
b. charts d. arguments
 ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 79

2. The ____ is the arithmetic average of a set of numbers.

a. mean c. mode
b. median d. standard deviation
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 80

3. The ____ is the arithmetic value that occurs in the middle of a data set when organized from lowest to
highest, where half the values are less than and half the values are greater than the median value.
a. mean c. mode
b. median d. standard deviation
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 80

4. The ____ is the arithmetic value that occurs most frequently in a data set.
a. mean c. mode
b. median d. standard deviation
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 80

5. The ____ is a measure of how widely the data values are dispersed from the arithmetic mean.
a. mean c. mode
b. median d. standard deviation
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 80

6. Consider the following five values: 1, 1, 6, 7, and 10. The arithmetic mean of these values is ____.
a. 1 c. 5
b. 3.94 d. 6
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 80

7. A(n) ____ distribution exhibits an equal number of occurrences of data values both below and above
the arithmetic mean.
a. normal c. simulated
b. skewed d. angular
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 80

8. The ____ of a normal distribution are the same value.

a. mean, median, and mode
b. mean and median
c. mean, median, mode, and standard deviation
d. median and mode
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 80

9. The ____ function algorithm rounds down all values of less than half the range, and rounds up values
from half the range and above.
a. AVERAGE c. DOWN
b. NORMAL d. ROUND
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 86

10. The ROUND argument num_digits is the specified number of ____.

 a. decimal places c. integers
b. digits d. operators
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 85

11. If you wrote the formula =ROUNDDOWN (25.83%,2), the resulting value would be ____.
a. 26% c. 25.8%
b. 25% d. 25.83%
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 87

12. If you wrote the formula =ODD(1.23), the resulting value would be ____.
a. 1 c. 3
b. 2 d. 4
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 87

13. If you wrote the formula =TRUNC(-4.382,1), the resulting value would be ____.
a. -4 c. -4.38
b. -4.3 d. -4.382
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 87

14. Use ____ to copy a format from one cell to another cell or group of contiguous cells.
a. the Format Painter c. Paint
b. the Format Copier d. Special Format
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 88

15. Selecting the Set precision as displayed workbook option permanently changes the values in all
workbook cells from full precision (____ digits) to whatever format is displayed in that cell, including
the number of decimal places.
a. 5 c. 15
b. 9 d. 21
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 88

16. The simplest method to copy information is to first select the information you want to copy, and then
use the Copy button and the Paste button in the Clipboard group on the ____ tab.
a. FORMAT c. INSERT
b. HOME d. DATA
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 90

17. The Paste option called ____ pastes the contents of the copied cells(s) as a picture.
a. Picture c. Paste Picture
b. As Picture d. Paste Graphic
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 91

18. The Paste option called ____ pastes the formulas and formatting from the original range of cells, but
reverses the orientation so that the rows of the original cell range become the columns in the pasted
range, and the original columns become rows.
a. Transpose c. Wildcard
b. Switch d. Turn
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 90
19. The Paste option button option called ____ pastes the formulas and formatting from the original
cell(s), but not the format of the cell borders.
a. Keep Source Formatting c. Document Theme
b. No Borders d. Destination Formatting
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 90

20. The Paste option button called ____ pastes the data and formulas from the original cell(s), and
maintains the column width of the original cell(s).
a. Column Stay c. Keep Source Column Widths
b. Width Only d. Keep Column Size
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 90

21. The Paste Special dialog box offers the ____ option, which enables you to copy and paste a cell range
that contains one or more blank cells where the blank cells are not pasted over any existing values in
the range into which they are pasted.
a. Copy Blanks c. Comments
b. Blank Over d. Skip Blanks
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 92

22. The MODE.SNGL, MEDIAN, and STDEV.S functions work in a similar way, containing only one
type of argument, which is ____.
a. sort order c. a range of values for comparison
b. a list of values d. ranking parameters
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 93

23. A list of values can contain ____.

a. constants and cell references c. a two-dimensional block of cells
b. a range of cells along a column or row d. all of the above
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 93

24. With a ____ function, you include that function inside another formula or function as one of its
arguments.
a. nested c. child
b. parent d. linked
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 94

25. The technique used to fix certain rows while you scroll to other rows in a worksheet is called ____
panes.
a. freezing c. keeping
b. sticking d. locking
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 95

26. A technique you can use to see different parts of the screen at the same time is to ____ the window by
dragging either the horizontal split box or the vertical split box to create separate, scrollable panes.
a. split c. crack
b. delete d. separate
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 96 | 97
27. To calculate a(n) ____ between two data sets, you subtract the old value from the new value and then
divide the difference by the old value.
a. average difference c. percent difference
b. standard deviation difference d. none of the above
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 99

28. The ____ function allows you to sort a list and then count the number of entries either above or below
the value in question.
a. RANK.EQ c. FIND
b. POSITION d. COUNT
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 105

29. In the LARGE function, the second argument, k, is the desired ranking, where 1 is ____.
a. the largest value c. required
b. the smallest value d. not allowed
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 107

30. In the SMALL function, the first argument, array, is ____.

a. a formula c. a range of cells
b. the desired ranking d. a time period
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 109

31. The syntax of the COUNTIF function is ____.

a. =COUNTIF(range,array) c. =COUNTIF(array,k)
b. =COUNTIF(ref,range) d. =COUNTIF(range,criteria)
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 111

32. The values TRUE and FALSE are referred to as ____.

a. operational imperatives c. base values
b. Boolean values d. syntax neutral
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 112

33. The symbols > and >= are examples of ____.

a. relational operators c. arrays
b. relational values d. reference operators
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 113

34. ____ are symbols that you can use as part of the criteria to search for text strings in which the symbol
can be substituted for another character or set of characters.
a. Wingdings c. Open Text symbols
b. Wildwheels d. Wildcards
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 113

35. The ____ wildcard specifies that any number of characters can be substituted.
a. asterisk (*) c. forward slash (/)
b. question mark (?) d. backward slash (\)
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 113
36. The ____ wildcard specifies that a single character can be substituted.
a. asterisk (*) c. forward slash (/)
b. question mark (?) d. backward slash (\)
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 113 | 114

37. Wildcards work with ____.

a. numbers c. text
b. dates d. all of the above
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 114

38. With the COUNTIF function, the first time it encounters the comma delimiter, it assumes that what
follows is ____.
a. a date c. additional ranges
b. a number d. the criteria
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 116

39. The Format Cells dialog box, which can be opened from the ____ group Dialog Box Launcher on the
HOME tab, provides many options for changing the display of cell values.
a. Cells c. Number
b. Data d. Data
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 125

40. A format code can include up to four parts, each separated by a semicolon, and does NOT include
____.
a. negative number format c. zero value format
b. positive number format d. placeholder format
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 127

41. The ____ symbol acts as a digit placeholder that displays significant digits.
a. # c. ?
b. 0 d. %
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 128

42. The ____ symbol acts as a digit placeholder that displays both significant and insignificant zeros.
a. # c. ?
b. 0 d. %
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 128

43. The ____ symbol acts as a digit placeholder that does not display insignificant digits, but does hold a
place so that decimal points will align.
a. # c. ?
b. 0 d. %
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 128

44. The ____ symbol inserts a percentage sign and automatically multiplies the value inserted by 100 for
display.
a. # c. ?
 b. 0 d. %
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 128

45. The ____ symbol(s) insert(s) a comma as a thousands separator or as a scaling operator.
a. , c. “”
b. * d. @
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 128

46. The ____ symbol(s) indicate(s) repetition of the following character enough times to fill the column to
its complete width.
a. , c. “”
b. * d. @
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 128

47. The ____ symbol(s) specify/specifies that text enclosed in between these marks should be inserted as
shown.
a. , c. “”
b. * d. @
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 128

48. The ____ symbol(s) indicate(s) the location where text should be inserted in cells formatted with a
custom format.
a. , c. “”
b. * d. @
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 128

49. The ____ symbol indicates to skip the width of the next character. It’s frequently used with ( ) to make
sure positive numbers align with negative numbers displayed with ( ).
a. _ (underscore) c. @
b. - (dash) d. +
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 128

50. Performing a ____ analysis means, simply, to determine the outcome of changing one or more input
values and to evaluate the recalculated results.
a. maybe c. factor
b. what-if d. research
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 131

51. When using Goal Seek, you can specify the outcome you want and which input value you want to
vary, and Excel ____.
a. gives you a set of code to use in a database program
b. automatically calculates the solution
c. prompts you with a dialog box
d. none of the above
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 131

52. In the Goal Seek dialog box, the cell containing the data to vary in order to reach the desired output is
labeled ____.
 a. By changing cell c. What if
b. What to change d. Vary
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 132

53. In the Goal Seek dialog box, you use the Set cell box to specify the cell ____.
a. in which the output value will appear c. with the output label
b. that contains the formula to use d. none of the above
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 132

54. The Step button in Goal Seek ____.

a. allows you to step through each iteration one step at a time
b. returns the data in separate spreadsheets
c. walks you through the steps similar to a wizard
d. none of the above
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 134

55. Once the Goal Seek Status dialog box gives the target value, you can click ____ to update your
worksheet with the new values based on Goal Seek.
a. OK c. New
b. Update d. Cancel
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 132

56. In Goal Seek, if the target value cannot be reached exactly, the ____.
a. Goal Seek dialog box asks for your input
b. value of zero is listed as the current value
c. closest value found is listed as the current value
d. none of the above
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 132

57. Goal Seek uses ____ approach to finding the right input that achieves the desired result, or goal, in the
dependent cell.
a. a database c. a scientific
b. an iterative d. a random
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 134

58. Goal Seek continues to enter values until it reaches ____.

a. 0.001 of the goal c. either a or b
b. 100 iterations d. neither a nor b
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 134

59. The ____ function provided by Excel averages a series of values if they meet specific criteria.
a. COUNTIF c. AVERAGE
b. SUMIF d. none of the above
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 136

60. Goal Seek allows you to vary ____ input(s).

a. a single c. up to 5
b. up to 3 d. up to 10
 ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 134

61. The input for Goal Seek can be ____.

a. a constant value c. either a or b
b. derived from a formula d. neither a nor b
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 135

62. The syntax of the AVERAGEIF function ____ is very similar to the syntax of the SUMIF function.
a. (range,criteria,average_range) c. (ref,range,criteria)
b. (criteria,average,range) d. (array,average_range,ref)
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 136

63. ____ is an analytical method that creates artificially generated data to imitate real data.
a. Simulation c. Role playing
b. Play acting d. Regression
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 139

64. A simulation that is based on randomly generating specific values that have an equal chance of
appearing, such as numbers on a set of dice, is often referred to as a ____ simulation.
a. Las Vegas c. Lucky 7
b. Blackjack d. Monte Carlo
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 139

65. The ____ function randomly assigns a number between two specified values.
a. RANGERANDOM c. INBETWEEN
b. RANDBETWEEN d. RANDOM
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 140

66. The ____ function returns a random value between 0 and 1.

a. RANDUNDER c. RANDZERO
b. RAND d. RANDONE
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 140

67. The formula =RANDBETWEEN(1,3) randomly returns a(n) ____.

a. integer with three numbers c. number with three decimal places
b. 1, 2, or 3 d. none of the above
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 140

68. Automatic calculation can be turned off from the ribbon or from the ____ dialog box accessed via the
FILE tab.
a. Excel Options c. Automatic Options
b. Worksheet Options d. Ribbon Options
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 142

69. When working with the RAND and RANDBETWEEN functions, every time you enter another value
in a cell anywhere on the worksheet, the random values ____.
a. automatically change c. prompt you with an error message
b. prompt you with a dialog box d. stay the same
 ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 141

70. You can recalculate a worksheet at any time by pressing the ____ function key.
a. F5 c. F8
b. F7 d. F9
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 142

Case-Based Critical Thinking Questions

Case 2-1

Julia is learning how to use relational operators with the COUNTIF function. Her boss handed her the
chart in the above figure and asked her to solve some everyday business problems.

71. Julia wants to take a count of all employees who are participating in more than one committee. The
data is listed in column F of a worksheet. The correct formula would be ____.
a. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“<1”) c. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“>=1”)
b. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“>1”) d. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“=1”)
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 112 TOP: Critical Thinking

72. Julia wants to take a count of all employees who are participating in exactly one committee. The
correct formula would be ____.
a. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“<1”) c. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“>=1”)
b. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“>1”) d. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“=1”)
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 112 TOP: Critical Thinking

73. After showing her boss the data, he asked her to run one more COUNTIF to determine who is on one
or more committees. The correct formula would be ____.
a. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“<1”) c. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“>=1”)
b. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“>1”) d. =COUNTIF(F3:F13,“=1”)
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 112 TOP: Critical Thinking

74. On a separate project, the head of Human Resources is looking for a list of people who do not have
100% attendance. In the database, the number 1 means 100% attendance; all other numbers indicate
that some work was missed (for example, .75 is 75% attendance). The data is listed in column E of a
worksheet. The correct COUNTIF formula would be ____.
a. =COUNTIF(E3:E13,“<>1”) c. =COUNTIF(E3:E13,“>=1”)
b. =COUNTIF(E3:E13,“=1”) d. =COUNTIF(E3:E13,“<1”)
 ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 112 TOP: Critical Thinking

75. If the Human Resources director wanted a list of people who do have 100% attendance, the correct
formula would be ____.
a. =COUNTIF(E3:E13,“<>1”) c. =COUNTIF(E3:E13,“>=1”)
b. =COUNTIF(E3:E13,“=1”) d. =COUNTIF(E3:E13,“<1”)
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 112 TOP: Critical Thinking

Case-Based Critical Thinking Questions

Case 2-2

Nevia is using Goal Seek for the first time. She is determining what to put in each text box inside the
Goal Seek dialog box shown in the above figure.

76. If you were to help Nevia, you would tell her that the space labeled #1 in the above figure ____.
a. indicates the cell containing the output value
b. indicates the desired output value
c. indicates the cell containing the data to vary in order to reach the desired output
d. none of the above
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 132 TOP: Critical Thinking

77. Nevia has told you that the desired value is 325. In which text box should she insert the desired value?
a. #1 c. #3
b. #2 d. none of the above
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 132 TOP: Critical Thinking

78. Nevia’s boss stops by her desk and asks which of the three numbers in the above figure is considered
to be the dependent data, and she correctly answers ____.
a. #1 c. #3
b. #2 d. none of the above
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 132 TOP: Critical Thinking

79. At the end of the project, Nevia is very pleased with the results and is giving a demo of Goal Seek to a
few of her co-workers. To open Goal Seek, her first step is to click the ____ tab on the ribbon.
a. FORMULAS c. REVIEW
b. PAGE LAYOUT d. DATA
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 132 TOP: Critical Thinking

80. Once Nevia clicks the correct tab, to open Goal Seek, she clicks the ____ button in the Data Tools
group, then selects Goal Seek.
 a. What-If Analysis c. Goal Minder
b. Simulation d. Data Dialog
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 132 TOP: Critical Thinking

COMPLETION

1. ____________________ is a measure of how widely the data values are dispersed from the arithmetic
mean.

ANS: Standard deviation

PTS: 1 REF: 80

2. To specify that a value should be precisely stored to the nearest hundredth, use the
____________________ function.

ANS:
ROUND
Round
round

PTS: 1 REF: 84 | 85

3. The formula =____________________(3.432,1) rounds the value 3.432 up to the next highest tenth, or
3.5.

ANS:
ROUNDUP
Roundup
roundup

PTS: 1 REF: 86

4. The ____________________ Paste option button pastes the formulas and formatting from the original
cell(s), but not the format of the cell borders.

ANS: No Borders

PTS: 1 REF: 90

5. The ____________________ Paste option button pastes only the formulas from the original (copied)
cell(s).

ANS: Formulas

PTS: 1 REF: 90

6. The ______________________________ Paste option button pastes values from the original cell(s)
and formatting.

ANS:
Values & Source Formatting
 Values and Source Formatting
values & source formatting
values and source formatting

PTS: 1 REF: 90

7. The ____________________ Paste option button pastes a connection to the original cell, including the
applied formatting.

ANS:
Paste Link
paste link

PTS: 1 REF: 91

8. The MODE.SNGL, MEDIAN, and STDEV.S functions work in a similar way, containing only one
type of ____________________, which is a list of values.

ANS: argument

PTS: 1 REF: 93

9. When you ____________________ a function, you include that function inside another formula or
function as one of its arguments.

ANS: nest

PTS: 1 REF: 94

10. Excel provides several tools for displaying and scrolling columns and/or rows so that certain areas can
be fixed, or ____________________, and the remainder of the worksheet can be scrolled easily.

ANS: frozen

PTS: 1 REF: 95

11. To split an Excel window vertically, click the ____________________ after clicking to the right and
below the location where you want to divide the window.

ANS: split button

PTS: 1 REF: 96

12. To split the screen both vertically and horizontally so there are five rows at the top and three columns
on the left, place the cursor in the ____________________ column displayed on the screen in the sixth
row of the worksheet.

ANS:
fourth
4th

PTS: 1 REF: 96
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
not move from where he was, and she could not reach the door
without brushing against him, so she also stayed.
Another mood came to her. "Oh! I'm so sorry ..." she said. "I've
done very wrong to hurt you. You've always done your very best,
but it was over—you and I—so long ago. Long, long before Lance
was killed!"
"Over?" he repeated.
"Yes, over—men never know unless it's worth some woman's while
to tell them."
Harry's voice broke in.
"I'd better go.... I ought to ... I mustn't...." He murmured something
more, but they neither of them noticed him. They were intent upon
one another. He left the room.
Mr. Nix stared desolately around him. "I don't know what to do," he
repeated to himself. "I don't know what to do."
She sighed as she might have done with a child who was trying her.
"We've both got to think it out," she said. "I'm glad now that it's
happened. It ends all that falseness. I'll talk it over with you as long
as you like."
She moved forward; he stood aside and she left the room. He sat
down on the red sofa and stayed there, until late into the night,
trying to puzzle out his position. Sometimes, in his distress, he spoke
to himself aloud.
"That's what it is ... the world's changed. Entirely changed. Women
don't want men any more. But that's awful! They can't get on alone.
Nancy can't get on alone. She thinks she can, but she can't. She
gets taken in by the first silly boy that comes along. I believe she
cares for Harry more than she said.... She must.... She wouldn't
have let him kiss her...."
And that was the first thing that he found in the voyage of mental
discovery that he was now making—namely, that he couldn't be
jealous of Harry if he tried. His anger had left him. There was
nothing in that. He knew it absolutely. Nancy had spoken the truth
when she had said that she didn't care for that boy any more than
for a dog or a baby. No, he felt no jealousy, and now, oddly enough,
no anger.
But he did not know how he felt. He did not know what to do. Again
he saw the golden balls tossing in the air above him, and there was
she, alluring, glittering, tumbling, escaping.
He thought, with a smile of contempt, of his conquest of Hortons.
That was no achievement. But this, this new woman, this new
Nancy, here was something.
He slept that night on the sofa, taking off his coat and wrapping a
rug around him. He slept the slumber of the dead.
Next day they had only one talk together, and that a very little one.
Suddenly after breakfast she turned round upon him.
"Well," she said, "what are you going to do?"
"I don't know," he answered, and then because he felt that she
would despise him for being so indeterminate, he went on, "It
doesn't matter about Harry. I was only angry for a moment seeing
you together like that. I know that you don't care for him. It was
what you said afterwards—about not caring for me any more. Did
you mean that?"
"Why no," she answered, "I never said that. Of course I care for
you. How could it be otherwise after all these years? But I don't
want to give up my whole life to you any more. I don't love you. I
haven't loved you for years. I think Lance took all the love I had
after he was born. And so I don't want to be always with you. Why
should I be? Men when they are friends aren't always together. I
want to be free, to do some of the things independent women are
doing. There are so many things women can do now. I see no
reason for our staying always together. I don't want to stay with
anyone always."
"Then you don't love me any more?"
"No, of course I don't—and you don't love me. You know that. For
ever so long now you haven't felt anything about me at all. You've
pretended to because you thought it was right, but I've been a
shadow to you."
She was so right that he could only stare dumbly at her wisdom.
"You're not a shadow any longer," he said.
She laughed.
"That's only because we've just had a scene. I shall be a shadow
again in a day or two."
They waited. At last he said, "Well, you won't go at once, will you?
Please, promise me that. Stay until we've straightened everything
out. Promise me."
She shook her head.
"No, I'll promise nothing any more. I should only break my promises.
But I'll tell you before I'm going."
There began then for him the strangest time. Slowly an entirely new
woman stole into his life, a woman whom he did not know at all, a
creation as strange and novel as though he had but now met her for
the first time. Every evening, when he returned to the flat, it was
with the expectation of finding her gone. He questioned her about
nothing. She continued as she had done before to look after the flat
and his clothes and his food. He did not touch her; he did not kiss
her. They sat in the evening in their little sitting-room reading. They
discussed the events of the day.
Soon he realised that it was beginning to be a passionate
determination with him that he must keep her. He did not know how
to set about it. He found that he was beginning to woo her again, to
woo her as he had never wooed anybody before. He did not let her
see it. He fancied that he was the last word in tact. One evening he
brought her some roses. He tried to speak casually about it. His
voice trembled. One night he kissed her, but very indifferently as
though he were thinking of other things.
And how mysterious she was becoming to him! Not in the old way.
He could not believe that there had ever been a time when he had
known her so well that he could not see her. He saw her continually
now, through all his work, through every moment of the day. His
heart beat when he thought of her. He would wait for a moment
outside the door in the evening, his hands trembling with the
thought that he might look inside and find her gone.
He never questioned her now as to where she went, but he was
forced to admit that she did not go out any more than she had done
in the old days. It was strange when you came to think of it, that
she had not followed up more completely her fine declaration of
independence.
They went one evening to a theatre, together. They sat close to one
another in the dark, and he longed to take her hand, but did not
dare. He felt like a boy again, and she was surely young too—
younger than he had ever known her.
There were times when he fancied that after all she was quite
contented with her domesticity. But he did not dare to believe that.
If he once caught the golden ball and held it, what would happen?
There came at last an evening when imprudence overcame him. He
caught her in his arms and kissed her—kissed her as he had not
done for years. The first wonderful thing that he knew was that she
responded, responded with all the passion of their first days of
courtship.
He heard her murmur:
"Poor old Sam—you poor, blind, silly old Sam."
A moment later she was out of his arms and across the floor.
"But don't imagine," she cried, "that I'm sure that I'm going to stay.
I may be off at any minute. This very night perhaps!"
He was alone staring at the closed door. The golden balls were still
dancing. He wanted to follow her. He got up. He stopped. He had a
moment of intense disappointment.
Then—"By Jove, I believe I'm glad. I don't want to be sure of her. I
hope I'll never be sure of her again!"
And on that flash of self-realisation he began his new life.
 X
LIZZIE RAND
Lizzie Rand was just forty-six years of age when old Mrs. Roughton
McKenzie died leaving her all her money. Months later she had not
thoroughly realised what had happened to her.
Until that day of Mrs. McKenzie's death she had never had any
money. She had spent her life, her energies, her pluck and her
humour in the service of one human being after another, and
generally in the service of women. It seemed to her to be really
funny that the one who had during her life begrudged her most
should in the end be the one who had given her everything; but no
one had ever understood old Mrs. McKenzie, and as likely as not she
had left her money to Lizzie Rand just to spite her numerous
relations. Lizzie had expected nothing. She never did expect
anything, which was as well perhaps, because no one ever gave her
anything. She was not a person to whom one naturally gave things;
she had a pride, a reserve, an assertion of her own private liberty
that kept people away and forbade intimacy. That had not always
been so. In the long ago days when she had been Adela
Beaminster's secretary she had given herself. She had loved a man
who had not loved her, and out of the shock of that she had won a
friendship with another woman, which was still perhaps the most
precious thing that she had. But that same shock had been enough
for her. She guarded, with an almost bitter ferocity, the purity and
liberty of her soul.
All the women whose secretaries she had afterwards been had felt
this in her, and most of them had resented it. Old Mrs. McKenzie had
resented it more than any of them. She was a selfish, painted, over-
decorated old creature, a widow with no children and only nephews
and nieces to sigh after her wealth. One of Lizzie's chief duties had
been to keep these nephews and nieces from the door, and this she
had done with a certain grim austerity, finding that none of them
cared for the aunt and all for the money. The outraged relations
decided, of course, at once that she was a plotting, despicable
creature; it is doing her less than justice to say that the idea that the
money would be left to her never for a single instant entered her
head. Mrs. McKenzie taunted her once for expecting it.
"Of course you're waiting," she said, "like all of them, to pick the
bones of the corpse."
Lizzie Rand laughed.
"Now is that like me?" she asked. "And, more important, is it like
you?"
Mrs. McKenzie sniggered her tinkling, wheezy snigger. There was a
certain honesty between them. They had certain things in common.
"I don't like you," she said. "I don't see how anyone could. You're
too self-sufficient—but you certainly have a sense of humour."
There had been a time once when many people liked Lizzie, and she
reflected now, with a little shudder, that perhaps only one person in
the world, Rachel Seddon, the woman friend before-mentioned, liked
and understood her. Why had she shut herself off? Why presented
so stiff, so immaculate, so cold a personality to the world? She was
not stiff, not cold, not immaculate. It was, perhaps, simply that she
felt that it was in that way only that she could get her work done,
and to do her work thoroughly seemed to her now to be the job best
worth while in life.
During the war she had almost broken from her secretaryship and
gone forth to do Red Cross work or anything that would help. A kind
of timidity that had grown upon her with the years, a sense of her
age and of her loneliness, held her back. Twenty years ago she
would have gone with the first. Now she stayed with Mrs. McKenzie.
Mrs. McKenzie died on the day of the Armistice, November 11, 1918.
Her illness had not been severe. Lizzie had had, at the most, only a
week's nursing; it had been obvious from the first that nothing could
save the old lady. Mrs. McKenzie had not looked as though she were
especially anxious that anything should save her. She had lain there
in scornful silence, asking for nothing, complaining of nothing,
despising everything. Lizzie admitted that the old woman died game.
There had followed then that hard, bewildering period that Lizzie
knew by now so well where she must pull herself, so reluctantly, so
heavily towards the business of finding a new engagement. She did
not, of course, expect Mrs. McKenzie to leave her a single penny.
She stayed for a week or two with her friend Rachel Seddon. But
Rachel, a widow with an only son, was so tumultuously glad at the
return of her boy, safe and whole, from the war, that it was difficult
for her just then to take any other human being into her heart. She
loved Lizzie, and would do anything in the world for her; she was
indeed for ever urging her to give up these sterile companionships
and secretaryships and come and make her home with her. But
Lizzie, this time, felt her isolation as she had never done before.
"I'm getting old," she thought. "And I'm drifting off ... soon I shall
be utterly alone." The thought sent little shivering ghosts climbing
about her body. She saw in the gay, happy, careless, kindly eyes of
young Tom Seddon how old she was to the new generation.
He called her "Aunt Liz," took her to the theatre, and was an angel
... nevertheless an angel happily, almost boastfully, secure in
another, warmer planet than hers.
Then came the shock. Mrs. McKenzie had left her everything—the
equivalent of about eight thousand pounds a year.
At first her sense was one of an urgent need of rest. She sank back
amongst the cushions and pillows of Rachel's house and refused to
think ... refused to think at all.... She considered for a moment the
infuriated faces of the McKenzie relations. Then they, too, passed
from her consciousness.
When she faced the world again, she faced it with the old common
sense that had always been her most prominent characteristic. She
had eight thousand a year. Well, she would do the very best with it
that she could. Rachel, who had appeared to be more deeply excited
than she over the event, had various suggestions to offer, but Lizzie
had her own ideas. She could not remember the time when she had
not planned what she would do when somebody left her money.
She took one of the most charming flats in Hortons, bought beautiful
things for it, etchings by D. T. Cameron, one Nevinson, and a John
drawing, some Japanese prints; she had books and soft carpets and
flowers and a piano; and had the prettiest spare room for a friend.
Then she stopped and looked about her. There were certain charities
in which she had been always deeply interested, especially one for
Poor Gentlewomen. There was a home, too, for illegitimate babies.
She remembered, with a happy irony, the occasion when she had
tried to persuade Mrs. McKenzie to give something to these charities
and had failed.... Well, Mrs. McKenzie was giving now all right. Lizzie
hoped that she knew it.
There accumulated around her all the business that clusters about
an independent woman with means. She was on committees; many
people who would not have looked twice at her before liked her now
and asked her to their houses.
Again she stopped and looked about her.
Still there was something that she needed. What was it?
Companionship? More than that. Affection, a centre to her life;
someone who needed her, someone to whom she was of more
importance than anyone else in the world. Even a dog....
She was forty-six. Without being plain she was too slight, too hard-
drawn, too masculine, above all too old to be attractive to men. An
old maid of forty-six. She faced the truth. She gave little dinner-
parties, and felt more lonely than ever. Even it seemed there was
nobody who wanted to make her a confidante. People wanted her
money, but herself not at all. She was not good conversationally. She
said sharp sarcastic things that frightened people. People did not
want the truth; they wanted things to be wrapped up first, as her
mother and sister had wanted them years ago.
She was a failure socially, in spite of her money. She could not be
genial, and yet her heart ached for love.
At this moment Mr. Edmund Lapsley appeared. Lizzie met him at a
party given by Mrs. Philip Mark in Bryanston Square. Mrs. Mark was
an old friend of Rachel's, a kindly and clever woman with an
ambitious husband who would never get very far.
Her parties were always formed by a strange mixture dictated first
by her kind heart and second her desire to have people in her house
who might possibly help her husband. Edmund Lapsley originated in
the former of these impulses. He was not much to look at—long,
lanky, with a high bony head, a prominent Roman nose and large,
cracking fingers. He was shabbily dressed, awkward in his manner,
and apprehensive. It was his eyes that first attracted Lizzie's
attention. They were beautiful large brown eyes, with the expression
of a lost and lonely dog seated deep in their pupils. He sat with
Lizzie in a corner of the crowded drawing-room to arrange his long
legs so that they should not be in the way, cracked his long fingers
together and endeavoured to be interested in the people whom
Lizzie pointed out to him.
"That's Henry Trenchard," Lizzie said, "that wild-looking boy with the
untidy hair.... He's very clever. Going to be our great novelist....
That's his sister, Millie. Mrs. Mark's sister, too. Isn't she pretty? She's
the loveliest of the family. That stout clergyman is a Trenchard
cousin. They all hang together in the most wonderful way, you know.
His wife ran away and never came back again. I don't think I
wonder; he looks heavy...." And so on.
Lizzie wondered to herself why she bothered. It was not her habit to
gossip, and Mr. Lapsley was obviously not at all interested.
"I beg your pardon," she said; "you don't want to know who these
people are."
"No," he said in a strange, sudden, desperate whisper. "I don't. I lost
my wife only three months ago. I'm trying to go out into the world
again. I can't. It doesn't do any good." He gripped his knee with one
of his large bony hands.
"I'm so sorry," Lizzie said. "I didn't know. How tiresome of me to
have gone on chattering like that! You should have stopped me."
He seemed himself to be surprised at the confession that he had
made. He stared at her in a bewildered fashion like an owl suddenly
flashed into light. He stared, saying nothing. Suddenly in the same
hurried, husky whisper he went on: "Do you mind my talking to you?
I want to talk to somebody. I'd like to tell you about her."
"Please," said Lizzie, looking into his eyes, they were tender and
beautiful, so unlike his ugly body, and full of unhappiness.
He talked; the words tumbled out in an urgent, tremulous confusion.
They had been married, it appeared, ten years, ten wonderful happy
years. "How she can have cared for me, that's what I never
understood, Miss—Miss——"
"Rand," said Lizzie.
"I beg your pardon. Difficult to catch ... when you are introduced....
Never understood. I was years older than she. I'm fifty now—forty
when I married her, and she was only twenty. Thirty when she—
when she died. In childbirth it was. The child, a boy, was born dead.
Everyone prophesied disaster. They all told her not to marry me, she
was so pretty, and so young, and so brilliant. She sang, Miss Rand,
just like a lark. She did, indeed. She was trained in Paris. I oughtn't
to have proposed to her, I suppose. That's what I tell myself now,
but I was carried off my feet, completely off my feet. I couldn't help
myself at all. I loved her from the first moment that I saw her. You
know how those things are, Miss Rand. And, in any case, I don't
know. Ten perfect years, that's a good deal for anyone to have, isn't
it? And she was as happy as I was. It may seem strange to you,
looking at me, but it was really so. She thought I was so much
cleverer than I was—and better too. It used to make me very
nervous sometimes lest she should find me out, you know, and leave
me. I always expected that to happen. But she was so charitable to
everyone. Never could see the bad side of people, and they were
always better with her than with anyone else. We'd always hoped for
a child, and then, as the years went on, we gave it up. Edmund, she
said to me, we must make it up to one another. And then she told
me it was going to be all right. You wouldn't have believed two
ordinary people could be so happy as we were when we knew about
it. We made many plans, of course. I was a little apprehensive that
I'd be rather old to bring up a child, but she was so young that
made it all right—so wonderfully young.... Then she died. It was
incredible, of course. I didn't believe it ... I don't believe it now.
She's not dead. That's absurd. You'd feel the same if you'd seen her,
Miss Rand. So full of life, and then suddenly ... nothing at all. It's
impossible. Nature isn't like that. Things gradually die, don't they,
and change into something else. Not suddenly...."
He broke off. He was clutching his knees and staring in front of him.
"I don't know why I talk to you like this, Miss Rand ... I hope you'll
forgive me. I shouldn't have bothered you."
"I'm pleased that you have, Mr. Lapsley." She got up. She felt that he
would be glad now to escape. "Won't you come and see me? I have
a flat in Hortons Chambers in Duke Street, No. 42.... Do come. Just
telephone."
He looked up at her, not rising from his seat. Then he got up.
"I will," he said. "Thank you."
He was still staring at her, and she knew that he had something
further to say. She could see it struggling in his eyes. But she did not
want him to confess any more. He would be the kind of man to
regret afterwards what he had done. She would not burden his
conscience. And yet she had the knowledge that it was something
very serious that he wanted to tell her, something that had been, in
reality, at the back of all his earlier confession.
She refused the appeal in his eyes, said good-night, took his hand
for a moment and turned away.
Afterwards she was talking to Katherine Mark.
"I see you were kind to poor Mr. Lapsley," Katherine said.
"How sad about his wife!" Lizzie answered.
"Yes. And she really was young and beautiful. No one understood
why she married him, but I've never seen anything more
successful.... I didn't think he'd come to-night, but I'm fond of him.
Philip doesn't care for him much, but he reminds me of a cousin of
ours, John Trenchard, who was killed in Russia in the second year of
the war. But John was unhappier than Mr. Lapsley. He never had his
perfect years."
"Yes, that's something," Lizzie acknowledged.
It was strange to her afterwards that Edmund Lapsley should persist
so vividly in her mind. She saw him with absolute clarity almost as
though he were with her in her flat. She thought of him a good deal.
He needed someone to comfort him, and she needed someone to
comfort. She hoped he would come and see her.
He did come, one afternoon, quite unexpectedly and without
telephoning first. Fortunately she was there, alone, and wanting
someone to talk to. At first he was shy and self-conscious. They
talked stiffly about London, and the weather, and the approaching
Peace, and whether there would ever be a League of Nations, and
how high prices were, and how impossible it was to get servants and
when they got them they went.... Lizzie broke ruthlessly in upon
this. "It isn't the least little good, Mr. Lapsley," she said, "our talking
like this. It's mere waste of time. We both know plenty of people to
whom we can chatter this nonsense. Either we are friends, or we are
not. If we are friends, we must go a little further. Are we friends?"
He seemed to be at a loss. He blinked at her.
"Yes," he said.
"Well, then," she looked at him and smiled. "I don't want to force
your confidence, but there was something that you were anxious to
tell me about the other night, some way in which I could help you. I
stopped you then, but I don't want to stop you now. I'll be honoured
indeed if there's anything I can do."
He gulped, stammered, then out it came. At the first hint of his
trouble it was all that Lizzie could do to repress an impatient
gesture. His trouble was—spiritualism.
Of all the tiresome things, of all the things about which she had no
patience at all, of all the idiotic, money-wasting imbecilities! He
poured it all out. He had read books, at last a friend had taken him
... a Dr. Orloff, a very wonderful medium, a very trustworthy man, a
man about whom there could be no question.
On the first occasion the results had been poor—on the second
occasion his Margaret had spoken to him, actually spoken to him.
Oh! but there could be no doubt! Her very voice.... His own voice
shook as he spoke of it.
Since then he had been, he was forced to admit, a number of times
—almost every day ... every day ... every afternoon. He talked to
Margaret every day now for half an hour or more.
He was sure it was right, he was doing nobody any harm ... they
two together ... it could not be wrong, but.... He stopped. Lizzie
gave him no help. She sat there looking in front of her. She despised
him; she was conscious of a deep and bitter disappointment. She did
not know how he could betray his weakness, his softness, his
gullibility. She had thought him.... She looked up suddenly, knowing
that his voice had stopped. He was gazing at her in despair, his eyes
wide with an unhappiness that struck deep to his heart.
"You despise me!" he said.
"Yes," she answered. "I do." But she was aware at the same time
that she could have gone across to him and put her hand on his
head and comforted him. "That's all false! You know it is. You're only
deluding yourself because you want to persuade yourself—it's weak
of you. Your wife can't come to you that way."
"Don't take it from me!" His voice was an agonised cry. "It's all I
have. It's true. It's true. It must be true!"
They were suddenly in contact ... she felt a warm sense of
protection and pity, a longing to comfort and help so strong that she
instinctively put her hand to her heart as though she would restrain
it.
"Oh, I didn't mean," she cried, "that I'd take anything away from
you. No, no—never that. If you thought that I meant that, you're
wrong. Keep anything you've got. Perhaps I'm mistaken. The
mediums I've known have been charlatans. That's prejudiced me.
Then I don't think I want my friends to come back to me in quite
that way.... If it's true, it seems to be forcing them, against their will,
as it were. Oh! I know a great many people now are finding it all
true and good. I don't know anything about it. I shouldn't have said
what I did. And then you see I've never lost anyone whom I loved
very much."
"Never?" Mr. Lapsley asked, staring at her with wide-open eyes.
"No, never, I think."
He got up and came across to her, standing near to her, looking
down upon her. She saw that she had aroused his interest, that she
had suddenly switched his attention upon herself.
She had aroused him in the only way that he could be aroused, by
stirring his pity for her. She knew exactly how suddenly he saw her—
as a lonely, unhappy, deserted old maid. She did not mind; that the
attention of any one single human being should be centred upon her
for herself was a very wonderful, touching thing.
Silence fell between them; the pretty room, grey and silver in the
half-light, gathered intimately around them. When at last he went
away it seemed that the last ten minutes had added years to their
knowledge of one another.
A strange time for Lizzie followed. Edmund Lapsley had rushed into
her life with a precipitate urgency that showed how empty before it
had been. But there was more than their mere contact in the affair.
She was fighting a battle; all her energies were in it; she was
ruthless, savage, tooth-and-nail; he should be snatched from this
spiritualism.
It was a silent battle. He never spoke to her again of it. He did not
say whether he went or not, and she did not ask him. But soon they
were meeting almost every day, and she felt with a strange, almost
savage pleasure that her influence over him grew with every
meeting. She discovered many things about his character. He was
weak, undecided, almost subservient, a man whom she would have
despised perhaps had it not been for the real sweetness that lay at
the roots of him. She very quickly understood how this girl,
Margaret, although so young and so ignorant of the world, must
have dominated him. "Any woman could!" she thought almost
angrily to herself, and yet there was a kind of pride behind her
anger.
She would not confess to herself that what she was really fighting
was the memory of the dead girl, or, if she confessed at all, it was to
console herself with the thought that it was right for him now to
"cheer up a little."
Cheer up he did; it was curious to watch the rapidity with which he
responded to Lizzie's energy and humour and vitality.
At last she challenged him:
"Well, what about Dr. Orloff?" she asked.
He looked at her with a sudden startled glance, then almost under
his breath he said: "I don't go any more; I thought you didn't want
me to."
So sudden a confession of her power took her breath away. She
asked her next question.
"But Margaret?" she said. He answered that as though he were
arguing some long-debated question with himself:
"I don't know," he replied slowly. "You were right. That wasn't the
proper way to bring her back, even though it were genuine. I must
tell you, Miss Rand," he said suddenly flinging up his head and
looking across at her, "you've shown me so many things since we
first met. I was getting into a very bad way, indulging myself in my
grief. Margaret wouldn't have liked that either, but it wasn't until I
knew you that I saw what I was doing. Thank you."
"Oh, you mustn't!" She shook her head. "You mustn't take me for
Gospel like that Mr. Lapsley. You make me frightened for my
responsibility. We are friends, and we must help one another, but we
must keep our independence."
He shook his head, smiling.
"There's always been somebody who's taken my independence
away," he said. "And I like it."
After he had gone she had the tussle of her life. She ate dinner
alone, then sat far into the night fighting. Why should she fight at
all? Here was the charge given straight into her hand, the gift for
which she had longed and longed, the very man for her, the man
whom she could care for as she would her child. Care for and
protect and guide and govern. Govern! Like a torch flaring between
dark walls that word lit her soul for her. Govern! That was what she
wanted; all her life she had wanted it.
She wanted to feel her power, to dominate, to command. And all for
his good. She loved him, she loved his sweetness and his goodness
and his simplicity. She could make him happy and contented and at
ease for the rest of his days. He should never have another anxiety,
never another responsibility. Why fight then? Wasn't it obviously the
best thing in the world, both for him and for her? She needed him.
He her. She abandoned herself then to happy, tender thoughts of
their life together. What it would be! What they could do with old
Mrs. McKenzie's money! She sat there trying to lose herself in that
golden future. She could not quite lose herself. Threading it was
again and again the warning that something was not right with it,
that she was pursuing some course that she should not. The clock
struck half-past eleven. She gave a little shiver. The room was cold.
She knew then, with that little shiver, of what she had been thinking.
Margaret Lapsley....
Why should she be thinking of her? She was dead. She could not
complain. And if she were still consciously with them, surely she
would rather that he should be cared for and loved and guarded
than pursue a lonely life full of regrets and melancholy. What kind of
girl had she been? Had she loved him as he had loved her? How
young she had died! How young and fresh and happy!... Lizzie
shivered again. Ah! She was old. Fifty and old—old in thoughts and
hopes and dreams. Pervaded by a damp mist of unhappiness, she
went to bed and lay there, looking into the dark.
With the morning her scruples had vanished. She saw Margaret
Lapsley no more. She was her own sane, matter-of-fact mistress. A
delightful fortnight followed. All her life afterwards Lizzie looked back
to those fourteen days as the happiest of her time. They were
together now every afternoon. Very often in the evening too they
went to the theatre or music. He was her faithful dog. He agreed
with all her suggestions, eagerly, implicitly. Mentally, he was not
stupid; he knew many things that she did not, and he was not so
submissive that he would not argue. He argued hotly, growing
excited, calling out protests in a high treble, then suddenly laughing
like a child. For those days she abandoned herself utterly. She
allowed herself to be surrounded, to be hemmed in, by the
companionship, the care, the affection.... Oh, it was wonderful for
her! Only those who had known her years and years of loneliness
could appreciate what it was to her now to have this. She warmed
her hands at the fire of it and let the flames fan their heat upon her
cheeks.
Once she said to him:
"Isn't it strange that we should have made friends so quickly? It isn't
generally my way. I'm a shy character, you know."
"So am I," he answered her. "I never would have talked to you as I
have if you hadn't helped me. You have helped me. Wonderfully,
marvellously. I only wish that Margaret could have known you. You
would have helped her too."
He talked to her now continually of Margaret, but very happily, with
great contentment.
"Margaret would have loved you," he liked to say. Lizzie was not so
sure.
Then suddenly came the afternoon, for days past now inevitable,
when he asked her to marry him.
They were sitting together in the Horton flat. It was a day of intense
heat. All the windows were wide open, the blinds down, and into the
dim, grey shadowy air there struck shafts and lines of heat, bringing
with them a smell of dust and pavements. The roses in a large
yellow bowl on the centre table flung their thick scent across the
dusky mote-threaded light. The hot town lay below them like a still
sea basking at the foot of their rock.
"I want you to marry me, Lizzie," he said. "It may seem very soon
after Margaret's death, but it's what she would have wished, I know.
Please, please don't refuse me. I don't know how I have the
impertinence to ask, but I must. I can't help myself——"
At his words the happiness that had filled her heart during the last
fortnight suddenly left her, as water ebbs out of a pool. She felt
guilty, wicked, ashamed. She had never before been so aware of his
helplessness and also of some strange, reproaching voice that
blamed her. Why should she be blamed? She looked at him and
longed to take his head in her hands and kiss him and keep him
beside her and never let him go again.
At last she told him that she would give him her answer the next
day.
When at last he left her, she was miserable, weighted with a sense
of some horrible crime. And yet why? What was there against such a
marriage? She was pursued that evening, that night. Next day she
would not see him, but sent down word that she was unwell and
would he come to-morrow? All that day, keeping alone in her flat,
feeling the waves of heat beat about her, tired, exhausted, driven,
the whole of her life stole past her.
"Why should I not marry him? Why must I not marry him?"
The consciousness that she was fighting somebody or something
grew with her through the day. Towards evening, when the heat
faded and dusk swallowed the colours and patterns of her room, she
seemed to hear a voice: "You are not the wife for him. He will have
no freedom. He will lose his character. He will become a shadow."
And her answer was almost spoken to the still and empty room. "But
he will be happy. I will give him everything. Why may I not think of
myself at last after all these years? I've waited and waited, and
worked and worked...."
And the answer came back: "You're old. You're old. You're old." She
was old. She felt that night eighty, a hundred.
She went to bed at last; closed her eyes and slept.
She woke suddenly; the room swam in moonlight. She had forgotten
to draw her blinds. The high, blue expanse of heaven flashing with
fiery stars broke the grey spaces of her room with splendour.
She lay in bed watching the stars. She was suddenly aware that a
figure stood there between her bed and the thin shadowy pane. She
gazed at it with no fear, but rather as though she had known it
before.
It was the figure of a young girl in a white dress. Her hair was black,
her face very, very young, her eyes deep and innocent, full of light.
Her hands were lovely, thin and pale, shell-coloured against the
starry sky.
The women looked at one another. A little unspoken dialogue fell
between them.
"You are Margaret?"
"Yes."
"You have come to tell me to leave him alone?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Oh, don't you see? He won't be happy. He won't grow. His soul
won't grow with you. You are not the woman for him. Someone else
—perhaps—later— but oh! let me have him a little longer just now. I
love him so! Don't take him from me!"
Lizzie smiled.
"You beautiful dear!... How young you are! How lovely!"
"Leave him to me! Leave him to me!"
The moon fell into fleecy clouds. The room was filled with shadow.

With the morning nothing had been dimmed. Lizzie was happy with
a strange sense of companionship and comfort.
When Edmund came she saw at once that he was greatly troubled.
"Well?" he asked her.
"You've seen Margaret!" she cried. "Last night!" He nodded his head.
"It may have been a dream...."
"You don't want to marry me...."
"Oh, yes! Don't think I would go back...." She put her hands on his
shoulders.
"It's all right, Edmund. I'm not going to marry you. I'm too old.
We're friends for always, but nothing more. Margaret was right."
"Margaret!" He stared at her. "But you didn't know her!"
"I know her now," she answered. Then, laughing, "I've got two
friends instead of one husband! Who knows that I'm not the richer?"
As she spoke she seemed to feel on her cheek the soft, gentle kiss
of a young girl.
 XI
NOBODY
The only one of them all who perceived anything like the truth was
young Claribel.
Claribel (how she hated the absurd name!) had a splendid
opportunity for observing everything in life, simply because she was
so universally neglected. The Matchams and the Dorsets and the
Duddons (all the relations, in fact) simply considered her of no
importance at all.
She did not mind this: she took it entirely for granted, as she did her
plainness, her slowness of speech, her shyness in company, her
tendency to heat spots, her bad figure, and all the other things with
which an undoubtedly all-wise God had seen fit to endow her. It was
only that having all these things, Claribel was additionally an
unfortunate name; but then, most of them called her Carrie, and the
boys "Fetch and Carry" often enough.
She was taken with the others to parties and teas, in order, as she
very well knew, that critical friends and neighbors should not say
that "the Dorsets always neglected that plain child of theirs, poor
thing."
She sat in a corner and was neglected, but that she did not mind in
the least. She liked it. It gave her, all the more, the opportunity of
watching people, the game that she liked best in all the world. She
played it without any sense at all that she had unusual powers. It
was much later than this that she was to realise her gifts.
It was this sitting in a corner in the Horton flat that enabled her to
perceive what it was that had happened to her Cousin Tom. Of
course, she knew from the public standpoint well enough what had
happened to him—simply that he had been wounded three times,
once in Gallipoli and twice in France; that he had received the D.S.O.
and been made a Major. But it was something other than that that
she meant. She knew that all the brothers and the sisters, the
cousins, the uncles and the aunts proclaimed gleefully that there
was nothing the matter with him at all. "It's quite wonderful," they
all said, "to see the way that dear Tom has come back from the war
just as he went into it. His same jolly, generous self. Everyone's
friend. Not at all conceited. How wonderful that is, when he's done
so well and has all that money!"
That was, Claribel knew, the thing that everyone said. Tom had
always been her own favourite. He had not considered her the least
little bit more than he had considered everyone else. He always was
kind. But he gave her a smile and a nod and a pat, and she was
grateful.
Then he had always seemed to her a miraculous creature; his whole
history in the war had only increased that adoration. She loved to
look at him, and certainly he must, in anyone's eyes, have been
handsome, with his light, shining hair, his fine, open brow, his slim,
straight body, his breeding and distinction and nobility.
To all of this was suddenly added wealth—his uncle, the head of the
biggest biscuit factory in England, dying and leaving him everything.
His mother and he had already been sufficiently provided for at his
father's death; but he was now, through Uncle Bob's love for him, an
immensely rich man. This had fallen to him in the last year of the
war, when he was recovering from his third wound. After the
Armistice, freed from the hospital, he had taken a delightful flat in
Hortons (his mother preferred the country, and was cosy with dogs,
a parrot, a butler, and bees in Wiltshire), and it was here that he
gave his delightful parties. It was here that Claribel, watching from
her corner, made her great discovery about him.
Her discovery quite simply was that he did not exist; that he was
dead, that "there was nobody there."
She did not know what it was that caused her just to be aware of
her ghostly surprise. She had in the beginning been taken in as they
all had been. He had seemed on his first return from the hospital to
be the same old Tom whom they had always known. For some
weeks he had used a crutch, and his cheeks were pale, his eyes
were sunk like bright jewels into dark pouches of shadow.
He had said very little about his experiences in France; that was
natural, none of the men who had returned from there wished to
speak of it. He had thrown himself with apparent eagerness into the
dancing, the theatres, the house-parties, the shooting, the flirting—
all the hectic, eager life that seemed to be pushed by everyone's
hands into the dark, ominous silence that the announcement of the
Armistice had created.
Then how they all had crowded about him! Claribel, seated in her
dark little corner, had summoned them one by one—Mrs. Freddie
Matcham with her high, bright colour and wonderful hair, her two
daughters, Claribel's cousins, Lucy and Amy, so pretty and so stupid,
the voluminous Dorsets, with all their Beaminster connections, Hattie
Dorset, Dollie Pym-Dorset, Rose and Emily; then the men—young
Harwood Dorset, who was no good at anything, but danced so well,
Henry Matcham, capable and intelligent would he only work, Pelham
Duddon, ambitious and grasping; then her own family, her elder
sisters, Morgraunt (what a name!), who married Rex Beaminster,
and they hadn't a penny, and Lucile, unmarried, pretty and silly, and
Dora, serious and plain and a miser—Oh! Claribel knew them all! She
wondered, as she sat there, how she could know them all as she
did, and, after that, how they could be so unaware that she did
know them! She did not feel herself preternaturally sharp—only that
they were unobservant or simply, perhaps, that they had better
things to observe.
The thing, of course, that they were all just then observing was Tom
and his money. The two things were synonymous, and if they
couldn't have the money without Tom, they must have him with it.
Not that they minded having Tom—he was exactly what they felt a
man should be—beautiful to look at, easy and happy and casual, a
splendid sportsman, completely free of that tiresome "analysis" stuff
that some of the would-be clever ones thought so essential.
They liked Tom and approved of him, and oh! how they wanted his
money! There was not one of them not in need of it! Claribel could
see all their dazzling, shining eyes fixed upon those great piles of
gold, their beautiful fingers crooked out towards it. Claribel did not
herself want money. What she wanted, more than she allowed
herself to think, was companionship and friendship and affection....
And that she was inclined to think she was fated never to obtain.
The day when she first noticed the thing that was the matter with
Tom, was one wet, stormy afternoon in March; they were all
gathered together in Tom's lovely sitting-room in Hortons.
Tom, without being exactly clever about beautiful things, had a fine
sense of the way that he wished to be served, and the result of this
was that his flat was neat and ordered, everything always in perfect
array. His man, Sheraton, was an ideal man; he had been Tom's
servant before the war, and now, released from his duties, was back
again; there was no reason why he should ever now depart from
them, he having, as he once told Claribel, a contemptuous opinion of
women. Under Sheraton's care, that long, low-ceilinged room, lined
with bookcases (Tom loved fine bindings), with its gleaming,
polished floor, some old family portraits and rich curtains of a
gleaming dark purple—to Claribel this place was heaven. It would
not, of course, have been so heavenly had Tom not been so perfect
a figure moving against the old gold frames, the curtains, the
leaping fire, looking so exactly, Claribel thought "the younger image
of old Theophilus Duddon, stiff and grand up there on the wall in his
white stock and velvet coat, Tom's great-grandfather."
On this particular day, Claribel's sister, Morgraunt Beaminster and
Lucile, Mrs. Matcham, Hattie Dorset, and some men were present.
Tom was sitting over the rim of a big leather chair near the fire, his
head tossed back laughing at one of Lucile's silly jokes. Mrs.
Matcham was at the table, "pouring out," and Sheraton, rather stout
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

testbankmall.com