er. She was, Marion saw, looking at her again under
faintly contracted brows, and she realised that because she wept about
the child at Coltsfoot her eyes were small and red, and that had added
to her face a last touch of ruin which made it an unfavourable place for
the struggles of an unspontaneous expression of amiability. Of course
the girl was alarmed at being called down from her serene thoughts of
Richard by grotesque wavings of a woman whose face was such a queer
mask. But there was nothing to be said that would explain it all. She
took refuge in silence; and knew as they walked home that that also was
sinister.

CHAPTER IV

It struck Marion that it was very beautiful in this room that night. The
white walls were bloomed with shadows and reflections, and the curtains
of gold and orange Florentine brocade were only partly drawn, so that at
each window there showed between them an oblong of that mysterious blue
which the night assumes to those who look on it from lit rooms. On the
gleaming table, under the dim light of a shaded lacquer lamp, dark roses
in a bowl had the air of brooding and passionate captives. Different
from these soft richnesses as silk is from velvet, the clear flame of
the wood fire danced again in the glass doors of one of the bookcases:
and at the other, choosing a book in which to read herself to sleep,
stood Ellen, her head a burning bush of beauty, her body exquisitely at
odds with the constrictions of the product of the Liberton dressmaker.
She held a volume in one hand and rested the other on her hip, so that
there was visible the red patch on her elbow that bespeaks the recent
schoolgirl, and all that could be seen of her face was her nose, which
seemed to be refusing to be overawed by the reputation of the author
whose work she studied. In the swinging glass door beside her there was
a diffusion of reflected hues that made Marion able to imagine what she
herself looked like, in her gown of copper-coloured velvet, sitting in
the high-backed chair by the fire. She was glad that sometimes, by
night, her beauty crawled out of the pit age had dug for it, and,
orienting her thoughts as she always did, she rejoiced that Richard
would find such an interior on his return.

"Have you found a book you like?"

"No. There's lots of lovely ones. But none I just fancy. I'm inclined to
be disagreeable and far too particular this evening. Are these your
books or Richard's?"

"Nearly all mi