"I don't like to see anyone cry like that!"

And finding that the girl remained obstinately withdrawn from sight or
sympathy, she moved towards the door.

"Well," she said, with ironical compassion, "if you want me, I'll be in
the kitchen."

The little model remained lying on her bed. Every now and then she
gulped, like a child flung down on the grass apart from its comrades,
trying to swallow down its rage, trying to bury in the earth its little
black moment of despair. Slowly those gulps grew fewer, feebler, and at
last died away. She sat up, sweeping Hilary's bundle of notes, on which
she had been lying, to the floor.

At sight of that bundle she broke out afresh, flinging herself down
sideways with her cheek on the wet bolster; and, for some time after
her sobs had ceased again, still lay there. At last she rose and
dragged herself over to the looking-glass, scrutinising her streaked,
discoloured face, the stains in the cheeks, the swollen eyelids, the
marks beneath her eyes; and listlessly she tidied herself. Then, sitting
down on the brown tin trunk, she picked the bundle of notes off the
floor. They gave forth a dry peculiar crackle. Fifteen ten-pound
notes--all Hilary's travelling money. Her eyes opened wider and wider
as she counted; and tears, quite suddenly, rolled down on to those thin
slips of paper.

Then slowly she undid her dress, and forced them down till they rested,
with nothing but her vest between them and the quivering warm flesh
which hid her heart.

CHAPTER XLI

THE HOUSE OF HARMONY

At half-past ten that evening Stephen walked up the stone-flagged
pathway of his brother's house.

"Can I see Mrs. Hilary?"

"Mr. Hilary went abroad this morning, sir, and Mrs. Hilary has not yet
come in."

"Will you give her this letter? No, I'll wait. I suppose I can wait for
her in the garden?"

"Oh yes, sit!"

"Very well."

"I'll leave the door open, sir, in case you want to come in."

Stephen walked across to the rustic bench and sat down. He stared
gloomily through the dusk at his patent-leather boots, and every now and
then he flicked his evening trousers with the letter. Across the dark
garden, where the boughs hung soft, unmoved by wind, the light from
Mr. Stone's open window flowed out in a pale river; moths, born of the
sudden heat, were fluttering up this river to its source.

Stephen looked irritably at the figure of Mr. Stone, which could be
seen, bowed, and utterly still, b