She wrote busily for more than an hour, and Clare, silent, scarcely moving, sat watching her. Henrietta had, for once, no feeling of impatience at her idle supervision. She did not experience her usual sensation of intimidated antagonism. It was as if the stress of the last twenty-four hours had temporarily atoned the two incongruous characters. Neither by look or gesture had Clare flouted any suggestion or arrangement of Henrietta's--indeed, her presence had been quite distinctly a support. Henrietta had appealed more than once, and even confidently, to her. Henrietta had thought, with a touch of compunction, how strangely trouble brought out the best in people. Miss Hartill had been very proud of Louise Denny; evidently felt her death. The shock was causing her to unbend. Not, as one would have expected, to Alwynne Durand--she hoped, by the way, that Miss Durand was addressing those envelopes legibly: she did so dislike an explosive handwriting--no, Miss Hartill was turning, very properly, to herself in the emergency.... She was pleased.... There should be free-masonry between the heads of the school.... And Clare Hartill, for all her lazy indifference, was influential and enormously capable.... Henrietta wondered if it would be safe to consult her.... She might, without acknowledging a definite uneasiness, find out cautiously whether it had occurred to Miss Hartill that she, Henrietta, might be considered to have been negligent. She glanced across at her inscrutable colleague. Clare was staring thoughtfully at her. Her lips were puffed a little, as if in doubt. Their eyes met for a moment in a glance that was almost one of understanding. Henrietta hesitated, for the first time not at all disconcerted by Clare's direct gaze. But the sparkle of gay malice that attracted half her world, and disconcerted the other half, was gone from Clare's eyes. Their expression, for the time being, was calm, possibly friendly; at any rate, irreproachably matter-of-fact. Henrietta flung down her pen with a sigh of fatigue, and bent and unbent her cramped fingers. But it was not fatigue that made her stop work. She wanted to talk to Clare Hartill, and had a queer conviction that Clare Hartill wanted to talk to her. "Finished?" Clare spoke from the shadow of her deep chair. Her back was to the light, but Henrietta faced the west window. The evening sun laid bare her face for Clare's inspection. Not a flicker of expression could escape her, if she chose to look. "More or less. I want half-an-hour's rest." "I don't wonder. You've had everything to see to." Clare's voice was delicately sympathetic. Henrietta unbent. "A secretary's work isn't showy, Miss Hartill, but it's necessary: and any happening that's out of the common doubles it. The correspondence over this unhappy affair alone----" "I know. Of course, at Miss Marsham's age----"