Instantly a furious pen-scratching broke the hush. Louise glanced in the direction of the sound, and smiled broadly. Agatha had begun. Miss Hartill would have seen the joke, but the examiner was already absorbed in the book he had taken from his pocket. Louise gazed idly about her. So this was what the ordeal was like! There were her clean, blank papers on the desk before her, and the printed list of questions. She supposed she had better begin.... But there was plenty of time. She had a curious sense of detachment. Her body surrounded her, rigid, quiescent, dreading exertion. Her mind, on the contrary, was bewilderingly active, consciously alive with thoughts, as she had once, under a microscope, seen a drop of water alive with animalculi: thoughts, however, that had no connection with real life as it at the moment presented itself: thoughts that admitted the fact of the examination with a dreamy impersonality that precluded any idea of participation. Her mind felt comfortable in its warm bed of motionless flesh, would not disturb its repose for all the ultimate gods might offer: but was interested nevertheless in its surroundings, gazing out into them with the detached curiosity of an attic-dweller, peering out and down at a dwarfed and distant street. Yet each trivial object on which her eyes alighted gave birth to a train of thought that led separately, yet quite inevitably, to the memories that would shatter her quietude, as conscious and subconscious self struggled for possession of her mind. She stared at the intent backs of her neighbours. One by one they hunched forward, as each in turn settled to work. Louise considered them critically. What ugly things backs were! It was funny, but girls with dark skirts always pinned them to their blouses with white safety-pins, and _vice versa_. It made them look skewered.... Yet Miss Durand had said that backs were the most expressive part of the whole body.... That was the day they had seen the Watts pictures. But then the draperies of the great white figure in "Love and Death" were not fastened up in the middle with safety-pins.... That had been a wonderful picture.... She knew how the boy felt, how he fought.... How long had he been able to hold the door? she wondered. Characteristically, she never questioned the ultimate defeat. It was terrible to be so weak.... But the Death was beautiful.... pitying.... One wouldn't hate it while one resisted it, as one hated Mamma.... Mamma, forcing her way into an attic.... Louise writhed as she thought of it.