t of reconciliation--but Joanna had grown
more aristocratic in her feeding since she bought Great Ansdore. Ellen
spoke about her journey--she had had a smooth crossing, but had felt
rather ill in the train. It was a long way from Venice--yes, you came
through France, and Switzerland too ... the St. Gothard tunnel ...
twenty minutes--well, I never?... Yes, a bit smoky--you had to keep the
windows shut ... she preferred French to Italian cooking--she did not
like all that oil ... oh yes, foreigners were very polite when they knew
you, but not to strangers ... just the opposite from England, where
people were polite to strangers and rude to their friends. Joanna had
never spoken or heard so many generalities in her life.

At the end of supper she felt quite tired, what with saying one thing
with her tongue and another in her heart. Sometimes she felt that she
must say something to break down this unreality, which was between
them like a wall of ice--at other times she felt angry, and it was
Ellen she wanted to break down, to force out of her superior refuge,
and show up to her own self as just a common sinner receiving common
forgiveness. But there was something about Ellen which made this
impossible--something about her manner, with its cold poise, something
about her face, which had indefinitely changed--it looked paler,
wider, and there were secrets at the corners of her mouth.

This was not the first time that Joanna had seen her sister calm and
collected while she herself was flustered--but this evening a sense of
her own awkwardness helped to put her at a still greater disadvantage.
She found herself making inane remarks, hesitating and stuttering--she
grew sulky and silent, and at last suggested that Ellen would like to go
to bed.

Her sister seemed glad enough, and they went upstairs together. But even
the sight of her old bedroom, where the last year of her maidenhood had
been spent, even the sight of the new curtains chastening its exuberance
with their dim austerity, did not dissolve Ellen's terrible, cold
sparkle--her frozen fire.

"Good night," said Joanna.

"Good night," said Ellen, "may I have some hot water?"

"I'll tell the gal," said Joanna tamely, and went out.

Sec.32

When she was alone in her own room, she seemed to come to herself. She
felt ashamed of having been so baffled by Ellen, of having received her
on those terms. She could not bear to think of Ellen living on in the
house, so