ence coming to her from these German
girls prevented her risking with them any meeting of the eyes that was
not brought about by direct speech. But she felt them. She felt Emma
Bergmann's warm plump presence close at her side and liked to take food
handed by her. She was conscious of the pink bulb of Minna Blum's nose
shining just opposite to her, and of the way the light caught the blond
sheen of her exquisitely coiled hair as she turned her always smiling
face and responded to the louder remarks with, "Oh, thou _dear_ God!" or
"Is it possible!" "How charming, _charming_," or "What in life dost thou
say, rascal!"

Next to her was the faint glare of Elsa Speier's silent sallowness. Her
clear-threaded nimbus of pallid hair was the lowest point in the range
of figures across the table. She darted quick glances at one and another
without moving her head, and Miriam felt that her pale eyes fully met
would be cunning and malicious.

After Elsa the "English" began with Judy. Miriam guessed when she heard
her ask for Brodchen that she was Scotch. She sat slightly askew and
ate eagerly, stooping over her plate with smiling mouth and downcast
heavily-freckled face. Unless spoken to she did not speak, but she
laughed often, a harsh involuntary laugh immediately followed by a
drowning flush. When she was not flushed her eyelashes shone bright
black against the unstained white above her cheek-bones. She had coarse
fuzzy red-brown hair.

Miriam decided that she was negligible.

Next to Judy were the Martins. They were as English as they could
be. She felt she must have noticed them a good deal at breakfast
and dinner-time without knowing it. Her eyes after one glance at the
claret-coloured merino dresses with hard white collars and cuffs, came
back to her plate as from a familiar picture. She still saw them
sitting very upright, side by side, with the front strands of their hair
strained smoothly back, tied just on the crest of the head with brown
ribbon and going down in "rats'-tails" to join the rest of their hair
which hung straight and flat half-way down their backs. The elder was
dark with thick shoulders and heavy features. Her large expressionless
rich brown eyes flashed slowly and reflected the light. They gave Miriam
a slight feeling of nausea. She felt she knew what her hands were like
without looking at them. The younger was thin and pale and slightly
hollow-cheeked. She had pale eyes, cold, like a fish, thought Miria