ness all that day, since the moment when
Mr. Philip had caught her in front of the mantelpiece mirror. She had
gone to look at herself out of curiosity, to see whether she had in any
way been changed by the extraordinary emotions that had lately visited
her. For she had spent two horrible nights of hatred for Yaverland. She
had begun to hate him quite suddenly when he brought her home to say
good-night to her mother. There had broken out the usual tumult in the
dancing-hall, and he had raised his head with an intent delighted look
that at first she watched happily, because she loved to see his face,
which too often wore gravity like a dark mask, grow brilliant with
interest. But he quickly deleted that expression and shot a furtive
glance at her, as if he feared she might have overheard his thoughts,
and she saw that he was anxious that she should not share some
imagination that had given him pleasure.

She went and sat on a low stool by the fire, turning her face away from
him. So he was as little friendly as the rest of the world. Surely it
was plain enough that she lived in the extremity of destitution. The
only place that was hers was this drab little room with the shaking
walls and peeling chairs; the only person that belonged to her was her
mother, who was very dear but very old and grieving; and though
everybody else on earth seemed to have acquired a paradise on easy
terms, nobody would let her look in at theirs. It appeared that he was
just like the others. She folded her arms across her breast to compress
her swelling misery, while he sat there, cruelly not hurrying, and said
courteous things that afterwards repeated themselves in her ear all
night, each time a little louder, till by the dawn they had become
ringing proclamations of indifference.

Yaverland had turned on the doorstep as he left and told her that,
though he believed he had to motor-cycle to Glasgow the next day to see
one of his directors there, it was just possible there might be a
telephone message at his hotel telling him he need not do so; and he had
asked that if this were so might he spend the time with her instead.
Because of this she had lived all Sunday in the dread of his coming. Yet
very often she found herself arrested in the midst of some homely
action, letting some tap run on to inordinate splashings, some pot boil
to an explosion of flavoured fumes, because she was brooding with an
infatuated smile on his rich colours and rich w