wanderer by nature, and sometimes I find
cities very hard to bear. Do you know what I do?"

"No," she said.

"Turn them into other things. Now here in London, do you never think of
streets as waterways? Portland Place, for instance, is like ever so many
rivers I've seen, broad and shining. And some of those high thin streets
beside it are like canals; Oxford Circus is a whirlpool, and so on----"

He laughed. "I get no end of relief from thinking of things like that."

"You hate cities?" she asked him.

"No--not really. But it depends how they receive you. If they're
hostile----" He shrugged his shoulders.

"And this square?" she said. "What's this square?"

"A pool. All the houses hang over it as though they were hiding it. It's
restful like a pool. There's no noise----"

The statue of the nymph had disappeared. The trees were a black splash
against the lamp-lit walls. Lights were in the windows.

He seemed suddenly conscious that it was late. When he had gone Lizzie
stood, for some time, looking into the square and thinking how right he
had been.

All that evening Daisy was out of temper.

CHAPTER V

SHE COMES OUT

I

Downstairs the dinner-party was at its height. Mrs. Newton, the
housekeeper, went softly down the passages to give one last glimpse at
the ballroom. There it lay, like a great golden shell, empty, expectant.
The walls were white, the ceilings gold; on the white walls hung the
Lelys, the Van Dycks, and at the farther end of the room Sargent's
portrait of Her Grace, brought up, for this especial occasion, from the
Long Drawing-room. There was the gleaming, shining floor, there the
golden chairs with their backs against the wall, and there before each
picture a little globe of golden flame ministering to its beauties,
throwing the proud pale faces of the old Beaminsters into scornful
relief, and none of them so scornful as that Duchess in the far
distance, frowning from her golden frame.

Mrs. Newton was plump and important. She worshipped the Beaminster
family, and it yielded her now intense satisfaction to see these rooms,
that were used so seldom, given to their proper glory and ceremony. For
a moment as she stood there and felt the fine reflection of all that
light upon the shining floor, absorbed the silence and the space and the
colour, she was uplifted with pride, and thanked her God that she was
not as other women were, but had been permitted by Him to assist in no
small