Tea was served in the drawing-room, and Beryl, who for some reason had been very charming to Stanley ever since he came home, suggested a game of crib. They sat at a little table near one of the open windows. Mrs. Fairfield disappeared, and Linda lay in a rocking-chair, her arms above her head, rocking to and fro. “You don’t want the light—do you, Linda?” said Beryl. She moved the tall lamp so that she sat under its soft light. How remote they looked, those two, from where Linda sat and rocked. The green table, the polished cards, Stanley’s big hands and Beryl’s tiny ones, all seemed to be part of one mysterious movement. Stanley himself, big and solid, in his dark suit, took his ease, and Beryl tossed her bright head and pouted. Round her throat she wore an unfamiliar velvet ribbon. It changed her, somehow—altered the shape of her face—but it was charming, Linda decided. The room smelled of lilies; there were two big jars of arums in the fire-place. “Fifteen two—fifteen four—and a pair is six and a run of three is nine,” said Stanley, so deliberately, he might have been counting sheep. “I’ve nothing but two pairs,” said Beryl, exaggerating her woe because she knew how he loved winning. The cribbage pegs were like two little people going up the road together, turning round the sharp corner, and coming down the road again. They were pursuing each other. They did not so much want to get ahead as to keep near enough to talk—to keep near, perhaps that was all. But no, there was always one who was impatient and hopped away as the other came up, and would not listen. Perhaps the white peg was frightened of the red one, or perhaps he was cruel and would not give the red one a chance to speak. . . . In the front of her dress Beryl wore a bunch of pansies, and once when the little pegs were side by side, she bent over and the pansies dropped out and covered them. “What a shame,” said she, picking up the pansies. “Just as they had a chance to fly into each other’s arms.” “Farewell, my girl,” laughed Stanley, and away the red peg hopped. The drawing-room was long and narrow with glass doors that gave on to the verandah. It had a cream paper with a pattern of gilt roses, and the furniture, which had belonged to old Mrs. Fairfield, was dark and plain. A little piano stood against the wall with yellow pleated silk let into the carved front. Above it hung an oil painting by Beryl of a large cluster of surprised looking clematis. Each flower was the size of a small saucer, with a centre like an astonished eye fringed in black. But the room was not finished yet. Stanley had set his heart on a Chesterfield and two decent chairs. Linda liked it best as it was. . . . Two big moths flew in through the window and round and round the circle of lamplight. “Fly away before it is too late. Fly out again.” Round and round they flew; they seemed to bring the silence and the moonlight in with them on their silent wings. . . .