s still sitting
on the edge of the bed, looking up, with her lips parted, so that her
strong white teeth showed in two rows.

"Tell me," she said, "which d'you like best, Mr. Hewet or Mr. Hirst?"

"Mr. Hewet," Rachel replied, but her voice did not sound natural.

"Which is the one who reads Greek in church?" Mrs. Flushing demanded.

It might have been either of them and while Mrs. Flushing proceeded
to describe them both, and to say that both frightened her, but one
frightened her more than the other, Rachel looked for a chair. The room,
of course, was one of the largest and most luxurious in the hotel. There
were a great many arm-chairs and settees covered in brown holland, but
each of these was occupied by a large square piece of yellow cardboard,
and all the pieces of cardboard were dotted or lined with spots or
dashes of bright oil paint.

"But you're not to look at those," said Mrs. Flushing as she saw
Rachel's eye wander. She jumped up, and turned as many as she could,
face downwards, upon the floor. Rachel, however, managed to possess
herself of one of them, and, with the vanity of an artist, Mrs. Flushing
demanded anxiously, "Well, well?"

"It's a hill," Rachel replied. There could be no doubt that Mrs.
Flushing had represented the vigorous and abrupt fling of the earth up
into the air; you could almost see the clods flying as it whirled.

Rachel passed from one to another. They were all marked by something of
the jerk and decision of their maker; they were all perfectly untrained
onslaughts of the brush upon some half-realised idea suggested by hill
or tree; and they were all in some way characteristic of Mrs. Flushing.

"I see things movin'," Mrs. Flushing explained. "So"--she swept her hand
through a yard of the air. She then took up one of the cardboards which
Rachel had laid aside, seated herself on a stool, and began to flourish
a stump of charcoal. While she occupied herself in strokes which seemed
to serve her as speech serves others, Rachel, who was very restless,
looked about her.

"Open the wardrobe," said Mrs. Flushing after a pause, speaking
indistinctly because of a paint-brush in her mouth, "and look at the
things."

As Rachel hesitated, Mrs. Flushing came forward, still with a
paint-brush in her mouth, flung open the wings of her wardrobe, and
tossed a quantity of shawls, stuffs, cloaks, embroideries, on to the
bed. Rachel began to finger them. Mrs. Flushing came up once more, and
dro