r high tea.

Mrs. Tams was out. It was not among Mrs. Tams's regular privileges
to be out in the afternoon. But this was Easter Saturday--rather a
special day--and, further, one of her daughters had gone away for
Easter and left a child with one of her daughters-in-law, and
Mrs. Tams had desired to witness some of the dealings of her
daughter-in-law with her grandchild. Not without just pride had Mrs.
Tams related the present circumstances to Rachel. In Mrs. Tams's young
maturity parents who managed a day excursion to Blackpool in the year
did well, and those who went away for four or five days at Knype Wakes
in August were princes and plutocrats. But nowadays even a daughter
of Mrs. Tams, not satisfied with a week at Knype Wakes, could take a
week-end at Easter just like great folk such as Louis. Which proved
that the community at large, or Mrs. Tams's family, had famously got
up in the world. Rachel recalled Louis' suggestion, more than a week
earlier, of a trip to Llandudno. The very planet itself had aged since
then.

She looked at the clock. In twenty minutes Mrs. Tams would be back.
She and Louis were alone together in the house. She might go straight
into the parlour, and say, in as indifferent and ordinary a voice as
she could assume: "I've just been over to Julian Maldon's to give him
that money--all of it, you know," and thus get the affair finished
before Mrs. Tams's reappearance. Louis was within a few feet of her,
hidden only by the door which a push would cause to swing!... Yes, but
she could not persuade herself to push the door! The door seemed to
be protected from her hand by a mysterious spell which she dared not
break. She was, indeed, overwhelmed by the simple but tremendous fact
that Louis and herself were alone together in the darkening house. She
decided, pretending to be quite calm: "I'll just run upstairs and take
my things off first. There's no use in my seeming to be in a hurry."

In the bedroom she arranged her toilet for the evening, and
established order in every corner of the chamber. Under the washstand
lay the long row of Louis' boots and shoes, each pair in stretchers.
She suddenly contrasted Julian's heavy and arrogant dowdiness with the
nice dandyism of Louis. She could not help thinking that Julian
would be a terrible person to live with. This was the first thought
favourable to Louis which had flitted through her mind for a long
time. She dismissed it. Nothing in another man coul