e waiting-room, where they handed her the Times, which she
could not read from excitement, she caught sight of rooms lined to the
ceilings with leather books and black tin boxes, initialed in white to
indicate the brand, and of young men seated behind lumps of paper that
had been written on. She heard a perpetual clicking noise which roused
her interest, and smelled a peculiar odour of leather and disinfectant
which impressed her disagreeably. A youth with reddish hair and a pen
in his hand passed through and looked at her with a curious stare
immediately averted. She suddenly felt sorry for him and all those
other young men behind the lumps of paper, and the thought went flashing
through her mind, 'I suppose it's all because people can't agree.'

She was shown in to Mr. Paramor at last. In his large empty room, with
its air of past grandeur, she sat gazing at three La France roses in a
tumbler of water with the feeling that she would never be able to begin.

Mr. Paramor's eyebrows, which jutted from his clean, brown face like
little clumps of pothooks, were iron-grey, and iron-grey his hair
brushed back from his high forehead. Mrs. Pendyce wondered why he
looked five years younger than Horace, who was his junior, and ten years
younger than Charles, who, of course, was younger still. His eyes, which
from iron-grey some inner process of spiritual manufacture had made into
steel colour, looked young too, although they were grave; and the smile
which twisted up the corners of his mouth looked very young.

"Well," he said, "it's a great pleasure to see you."

Mrs. Pendyce could only answer with a smile.

Mr. Paramor put the roses to his nose.

"Not so good as yours," he said, "are they? but the best I can do."

Mrs. Pendyce blushed with pleasure.

"My garden is looking so beautiful----" Then, remembering that she no
longer had a garden, she stopped; but remembering also that, though she
had lost her garden, Mr. Paramor still had his, she added quickly: "And
yours, Mr. Paramor--I'm sure it must be looking lovely."

Mr. Paramor drew out a kind of dagger with which he had stabbed some
papers to his desk, and took a letter from the bundle.

"Yes," he said, "it's looking very nice. You'd like to see this, I
expect."

"Bellew v. Bellew and Pendyce" was written at the top. Mrs. Pendyce
stared at those words as though fascinated by their beauty; it was long
before she got beyond them. For the first time the full horror o