When the door closed firmly after him limits seemed to dissolve. She put the fan down carefully on the table, and she looked at her miserable face in the glass with a vague, ulterior satisfaction, for even if one’s heart was broken it was something of a comfort that one looked distinctly pretty in tears. CHAPTER VII “So long as we know not what it opens, nothing can be more beautiful than a key.” THE short June days soon came to an end, and Muriel found them none too short, for warmth can only be enjoyed by the luxurious, and her life at present was anything but that. If one plunged into the work and life of the people it needed strength both of will and body to carry one through its disillusions. There was nothing in the least exciting in the work before her—it was merely very hard. Occasionally it was true the great opportunity would arise, as it had done in the case of poor Liz. But next to their extraordinary infrequency came the swiftness with which all the greatness evaporated: their very sins were so matter-of-fact, and the larger elements in life were taken so unpicturesquely that they seemed shorn of their solemnity, and then strangely robbed of all “the trailing clouds” of mystery. When a widow spoke of her dead husband as “’E made a beautiful corpse, ’e did—yer ought to er seen ’im, miss,” the word died on her lips, and to look at a dead baby as being “one less mouth to feed,” jarred on all her tender notes of sympathy by the crudity of its truth. Muriel wrote to Gladys, who, strange to say, had come to see her alone, not once but often, that she had never known “death could be vulgar before;” and, though she felt very worried at the thought of shutting up the club for three months, she confessed to herself her heart rose at the thought of the long, easy luxury of house-parties, country days, and even a glimpse of the sea. People, too, who said a little more—and meant a little less—she looked forward to meeting with a positive sense of rest. Clear black and white were rather glaring she thought, and how life was mellowed by a little mist! Jack Hurstly had never been to see her. She had heard of him occasionally from Gladys. Sir Arthur wished her to come at once to Blacklands, a house in a beautiful vicinity, not too far from the conveniences of life; and towards the end of July, very tired and fagged, Muriel packed up her things to go. There were many good-byes to be said, but they were all over now with the exception of Liz—Liz and the baby. She had not seen either of them lately. As she knocked at the door she heard the long, fretful wail of a sick child, and then the ungracious tones of a woman’s voice. “Ah, it’s you, is it?” she added shrilly as Muriel entered. “I thought you had given us the slip. No, I ain’t been comin’ to the club, nor I don’t mean to—nor Dick neither, we ’ave ’ad enough of it, we ’ave.”