him suddenly sinister. They gazed at him as
though he had revealed that he carried arms. But Ellen remembered
business again.

"Those letters," she reminded Mr. Philip, "had I not better read them
over before Mr. Yaverland goes?"

Yaverland caught his breath, then spoke off-handedly. "You're
forgetting. They don't speak Spanish in Brazil, but Portuguese." And
added confidentially, "Of course you were thinking of the Argentine."

She was as hurt by the revelation of this vast breach in her omniscience
as the bright twang of knowingness in her voice had told him she would
be.

"Yes," she said unsteadily, "I was thinking of the Argentine."

He shook hands with Mr. Philip, and she took him down the corridor to
the door. She blinked back her tears as he stood at the head of the
stair and put up his collar with those strange hands that were speckled
like a snake's belly, for it seemed a waste, like staying indoors when
the menagerie procession is going round the town, to let anything so
unusual go away without seeing as much of it as possible. Then she
remembered the thing that she had wanted to say in the other room, and
wondered if it would be bold to speak, and finally remarked in a voice
disagreeable with shyness, "The people up on the Pentland Hills use that
word you said was in Shakespeare. Snow-broth. When the hill-streams run
full after the melting of the snows, that's snow-broth."

He liked women who were interested in queer-shaped fragments of fact,
for they reminded him of his mother. He took pains to become animated at
her news.

"They do, they do!" Ellen assured him, pleased by his response. "And
they say 'hit' for 'it,' which is Anglo-Saxon."

He noticed that her overall, which she was growing out of, fitted
tightly on her over-thin shoulders and showed how their line was spoilt
by the deep dip of the clavicle, and wondered why that imperfection
should make her more real to him than she had been when he had thought
her wholly beautiful. Again he became aware of her discontent with her
surroundings, which had exerted on her personality nothing of the
weakening effect of despair, since it sprang from such a rich content
with the universe, such a confident faith that the supremest beauty she
could imagine existed somewhere and would satisfy her if only she could
get at it. He said, with no motive but to confirm her belief that the
world was full of interest, "You must go on with your Spanish, you know.
Do