t in connection with the
projected Hillport Choral Society. (Had Janet been warned of Hilda's
visit, she would not have accepted an invitation to a tea at Hillport as
a preliminary to the meeting of the provisional committee.) Hilda was in
a state of acute distress. The appointment with Edwin Clayhanger seemed
to be absolutely sacred to her; to be late for it would amount to a
crime: to miss it altogether would be a calamity inconceivable. The
fingers of all the clocks in the house were revolving with the most
extraordinary rapidity--she was helpless.

She was helpless, because she had said nothing all day of her
appointment, and because Janet had not mentioned it either. Janet might
have said before leaving: "Tea had better not wait too long--Hilda has
to be down at Clayhanger's at half-past six." Janet's silence impressed
Hilda: it was not merely strange--it was formidable: it affected the
whole day. Hilda thought: "Is she determined not to speak of it unless I
do?" Immediately Janet was gone, Hilda had run up to the bedroom. She
was minded to change the black frock which she had been wearing, and
which she hated, and to put on another skirt and bodice that Janet had
praised. She longed to beautify herself, and yet she was still
hesitating about it at half-past five in the evening as she had
hesitated at eight in the morning. In the end she had decided not to
change, an account of the rain. But the rain had naught to do with her
decision. She would not change, because she was too proud to change. She
would go just as she was! She could not accept the assistance of an
attractive bodice!... Unfeminine, perhaps, but womanly.

At twenty-five minutes to seven, she went into Mrs. Orgreave's bedroom,
rather like a child, and also rather like an adult creature in a
distracting crisis. Tom Orgreave and Alicia were filling the entire
house with the stormy noise of a piano duet based upon Rossini's
_William Tell_.

"I think I'll miss tea, Mrs. Orgreave," she said. "Edwin Clayhanger
invited me to go over the printing-works at half-past six, and it's
twenty-five minutes to seven now."

"Oh, but, my dear," cried Mrs. Orgreave, "why ever didn't you tell them
downstairs, or let me know earlier?"

And she pulled at the bell-rope that overhung the head of the bed. Not a
trace of teasing archness in her manner! Hilda's appointment might have
been of the most serious business interest, for anything Mrs. Orgreave's
demeanor indicate