She sat on her box in the middle of the room hour after hour in the stifling heat. The afternoon sun beat in on her, but she did not pull down the blind. There was an armchair in the corner, but Janet unconsciously clung to the box, as the only familiar object in an unfamiliar world. Late in the afternoon, when Anne found her, Janet was still sitting on it, gazing in front of her, with an untasted cup of tea beside her, which the chambermaid had brought her. Anne sat down on the box and put her arms round her. "My dear," she said; "my dear." And Janet said no word, but hid her convulsed face on Anne's shoulder. Janet had a somewhat confused remembrance of what happened after that. Anne ordered, and she obeyed, and there was another journey in a cab, and presently she was sitting in a cool, white bedroom leading out of Anne's room; at least Anne said it did. Anne came in and out now and then, and forced her to drink a cup of milk, and smoothed her hair with a very tender hand. But Janet made no response. Anne was of those who do not despise the little things of life. She saw that Janet was suffering from a great shock, and she sent for the only child there was in the great, dreary London house--the vulgar kitchen kitten belonging to the cook. Anne silently held the warm, sleepy kitten against Janet's cheek. It purred when it was touched, and then fell asleep, a little ball of comfort against Janet's neck. The white, over-strained face relaxed. Anne's gentle touch and presence had not achieved that, but the kitten did. Two large tears rolled down into its fur. The peace and comfort and physical well-being of feeling a little life warm--asleep, pressed close against you, is perhaps not new. Perhaps it goes back as far as the wilderness, which ceased to be a wilderness when Eve brought forth her firstborn in it. I think she must have forgotten all about her lost Garden of Eden when she first heard the breathing of her sleeping child against her bosom. The brambles and the thorns would prick very little after that. Later on, when Anne came in softly, Janet was asleep, with the kitten on her shoulder. An hour later Anne came in once more in a wonderful white gown, and stood a moment watching Janet. Anne was not excited, but a little tumult was shaking her, as a summer wind stirs and ripples all the surface of a deep-set pool. She knew that she would meet Stephen to-night at the dinner-party for which she was already late, and that knowledge, though long experience had taught her that it was useless to meet him, that he would certainly not speak to her if he could help it, still the knowledge that she should see him caused a faint colour to burn in her pale cheek, a wavering light in her grave eyes, a slight tremor of her whole delicate being. She looked, as she stood in the half-light, a woman to whose exquisite hands even a poet might have entrusted his difficult, double-edged love, much more a hard man of business such as Stephen.