ere
painted grey, and some were not painted. Mr. Haim exhibited first the
kitchen. George saw a morsel of red amber behind black bars, a white
deal table and a black cat crouched on a corner of the table, a chair,
and a tea-cloth drying over the back thereof. He liked the scene; it
reminded him of the Five Towns, and showed reassuringly--if he needed
reassurance, which he did not--that all houses are the same at heart.
Then Mr. Haim, flashing a lamp-ray on the coal-hole and the area door as
he turned, crossed the stone passage into the other basement room.

"This is our second sitting-room," said Mr. Haim, entering.

There she was at work, rapt, exactly as George had seen her from the
outside. But now he saw the right side of her face instead of the left.
It was wonderful to him that within the space of a few minutes he should
have developed from an absolute stranger to her into an acquaintance of
the house, walking about in it, peering into its recesses, disturbing
its secrets, which were hers. But she remained as mysterious, as
withdrawn and intangible, as ever. And then she shifted round suddenly
on the chair, and her absorbed, intent face softened into a most
beautiful, simple smile--a smile of welcome. An astonishing and
celestial change!... She was not one of those queer girls, as perhaps
she might have been. She was a girl of natural impulses. He smiled back,
uplifted.

"My daughter designs bookbindings," said Mr. Haim. "Happens to be very
busy to-night on something urgent."

He advanced towards her, George following.

"Awfully good!" George murmured enthusiastically, and quite sincerely,
though he was not at all in a condition to judge the design. Strange,
that he should come to the basement of an ordinary stock-size house in
Alexandra Grove to see bookbindings in the making! This was a design for
a boy's book. He had possessed many such books. But it had never
occurred to him that the gay bindings of them were each the result of
individual human thought and labour. He pulled at his cigarette.

There was a sound of pushing and rattling outside.

"What's that?" exclaimed Mr. Haim.

"It's the area door. I bolted it. I dare say it's Mrs. Lobley," said the
girl indifferently.

Mr. Haim moved sharply.

"Why did you bolt it, Marguerite? No, I'll go myself."

He picked up the lamp, which he had put down, and shuffled quickly out
in his red morocco slippers, closing the door.

Marguerite? Yes, it suited h