unted were those private ones when she found
attention surrendered wholly to her service. She hungered for the
unworn, unwearied sympathy of strangers. Her fancy had followed and
fastened on the Lucys, perceiving this exquisitely virgin quality in
them. And now she was suffering from an oppression of the nerves that
urged her to a supreme outpouring.

Miss Lucy seemed absorbed in her correspondence. She felt that Miss
Keating's eyes were upon her, and as she wrote she planned a dexterous
retreat. It would, she knew, be difficult, owing to Miss Keating's
complete occupation of the sofa by the door.

She had made that lady's acquaintance in the morning, having found her
sitting sad and solitary in the lounge. She had then felt that it would
be unkind not to say something to her, and she had spent the greater
part of the morning saying it. Miss Keating had tracked the thin thread
of conversation carefully, as if in search of an unapparent opportunity.
Jane, aware of the watchfulness of her method, had taken fright and left
her. She had had an awful feeling that Miss Keating was about to bestow
a confidence on her; somebody else's confidence, which Miss Keating had
broken badly, she suspected.

Jane had finished her letters. She was addressing the envelopes. Now she
was stamping them. Now she was crossing the room. Miss Keating lowered
her eyes as the moment came which was to bring her into communion with
the Lucys.

Jane had made her way very quietly to the door, and thought to pass
through it unobserved, when Miss Keating seemed to leap up from her sofa
as from an ambush.

"Miss Lucy," she said, and Jane turned at the penetrating sibilants of
her name.

Miss Keating thrust toward her a face of tragic and imminent appeal. A
nervous vibration passed through her and communicated itself to Jane.

"What is it?" Jane paused in the doorway.

"May I speak to you a moment?"

"Certainly."

But Miss Keating did not speak. She stood there, clasping and
unclasping her hands. It struck Jane that she was trying to conceal an
eagerness of which she was more than half ashamed.

"What is it?" she said again.

Miss Keating sighed. "Will you sit down? Here--I think." She glanced
significantly at the old lady who was betraying unmistakable interest in
the scene. There was no place where they could sit beyond her range of
vision. But the sofa was on the far side of it, and Miss Keating's back
protested against observation.

S