It was at tea-time that he first thoroughly became aware of the dark eyes of a lady, a young lady, a lady who was chiefly dark eyes. He had had a dim feeling during dinner that some inexplicable thing was causing a disturbance in his blood. He had given it no name. It may have been nervousness merely due to the new surroundings. But at tea-time he ascertained quite clearly that among the ladies of appallingly mature age seated round the table between his own table and the windows, a young lady not fearfully much older than himself, was lifting lettuce to her virginal lips. She was sixteen, perhaps seventeen, certainly not eighteen! They were nice lips for eating lettuce with, but they were nothing to compare with her eyes. Dark eyes, a bit languishing and long, with long lashes. He wondered what she was doing there amid her staider companions. He wondered what the colour of her dark eyes really was. Would you call it brown, or a sort of deep shade of grey? He became aware of her awareness of him. She was conscious of his scrutiny and the dark eyes stared scorn. A chit of a boy like him! He realized he had held his cup of tea for long seconds arrested on its journey to his lips. He blushed and drained the chilled cup to its last drop. The lady was chattering vivaciously, her eyes quick and lovely, her lettuce-receiving lips making rich, full curves as she spoke. "Make a good tea, you boys!" came the vigilant injunction of Mrs. Kraft. "Yes, Mrs. Kraft!" was the fervent and almost unanimous reply. "Yes, Mrs. Kraft!" hurried Philip, startled, belated. He observed quite distinctly the lips of the dark-eyed lady shape in mockery "Yes, Mrs. Kraft!" His veins burned resentment against the insolent mystery. The sun shouldered from behind a cloud and thrust his fingers into her thick hair. It sparkled and was alive with lights like a tray of gems in a jeweller's window. The flash and wealth of the girl's hair turned him swiftly veering towards Doomington, the thinning hair of his mother. "Poor old mother!" he mused, deliberately switching his mind away from the lady of long lashes. "I wonder if the cough's eased down a bit? I wonder how many days it'll be before she's up and about again.... What a funny little nose she's got, a weird little cleft at the tip! What can she be doing in that lot? ... O blow the girl, what's she got to do with it anyhow? Why on earth shouldn't mother get away here, as soon as she's properly all right? Everything's _kosher_ and all that sort of thing. He'll have to find the money somewhere, that's all! They could sell all those _bechers_ and the plush table-cloth. And we never use the samovar nowadays! Oh what a rotten cough it was, like something tearing! Poor old..." "You won't leave that piece of bread and butter on the plate unfinished, Philip Massel, please!" broke in the voice of Mrs. Kraft.