notebook, and stared at his half-completed
sketch beneath drawn-down brows.

'What rot; what sickening rot,' he murmured, and finished the drawing
with quick, skilful strokes.

This was a great time for newspaper men. Leaving the harbour, Tommy
strolled into the town, to seek impressions. The most vivid, coming to
him unsought, was one of cinders and black dust falling like
intermittent rain into his eyes. To protect them he followed Venables'
example, and thrust a page from his sketch-book under his hat. In the
street outside Santa Chiara he encountered Mrs. Venables and Miranda;
they were coming out of the church. Beneath her swathing motor veil,
Mrs. Venables' face was alight with exaltation. She also, manifestly,
was seeking--and finding--impressions. She accosted Tommy.

'Immensely striking.... But too pitiful'--she indicated the church--'the
prayers, the unreasoning, childlike terror. In the streets, too, the
poor terrified refugees, clasping their household gods and lighting
candles to the saints as they walk ... infinitely pathetic ... if one
could tell them how futile!'

She paused, remembering, perhaps, that Tommy, as belonging to the same
childlike faith, might also, on occasion, light a candle to the saints.

'It seems a natural thing to try, under the circumstances,' he remarked,
confirming her suspicion.

'Poor souls,' she murmured. 'I must get over to Bosco Trecase
to-morrow.... Human nature in the raw ... deeply impressive. One's heart
bleeds for all the broken-up homes. And the way they take it--children
hurt without knowing why. That seems to me to be infinitely pathetic;
don't you think so, Mr. Crevequer?'

Mr. Crevequer tapped his sketch-book with his pencil. The difference of
plane did not oppress him particularly in Mrs. Venables' presence; he
still almost enjoyed it.

'It's got, you know, to seem f-funny to me,' he explained. 'But I admit
it's a little forced, some of the humour.'

'Oh yes--your paper.'

Mrs. Venables became vague; her eyes greedily took in impressions from
the passers-by.

Miranda said, 'Oh, I say, do let's see!'

Tommy did not open his book. He changed the subject.

'Rather pretty, the way the cinders fall, don't you think?'

Miranda said that the atmosphere was beastly, and that she hated it.

'It gets right inside my clothes--all gritty.' She wriggled
distressfully. 'And my shoes are quite full of it. I want to go home to
lunch, but mother won't. Mother lik