Later, as the men answered to their names in the long, bare room which had once been the Blue Parlour, Henry was struck with the strangeness of the scene. Here his aunt had loved to sit doing an interminable embroidery of fruits and flowers upon canvas. Here he and Anthony had lain prone before the fire, each with his head in a book and his heels waving aloft. Memories of Fenimore Cooper and Henty filled the place when for a moment he closed his eyes. Then, as they opened, there was the room all bare, the windows barred and uncurtained, the long stretcher tables with their paraphernalia of glass retorts, queer, twisted apparatus, powerful electric appliances, and this row of men answering to their names whilst he checked each from his list. “James Mallaby.” He called the name and glanced from the man who answered it to the paper in his hand. A small photograph was followed by a description: “5 feet 7 inches, grey eyes, mole on chin, fair complexion, sandy hair.” All correct. He passed to the next. “Jacob Moss—5 feet 5 inches, dark complexion, black hair and eyes, no marks....” “George Patterson—5 feet 10 inches, sallow complexion, brown hair and beard, grey on temples, grey eyes, scar....” The man who answered to the name of George Patterson stepped forward. He had the air of being taller than his scheduled height. His beard and hair were unkempt, and the scar set down against him was a red seam that ran from the left temple to the chin, where it lost itself in grizzled hair. He stooped, and walked with a dragging step. Henry, who for the moment was speaking to Sir William, looked at him casually enough. He opened his list, and in turning the page, the papers slipped from his hand and fell. George Patterson picked them up. Henry went on to the next name. Jane had keyed herself up to meeting him at teatime, but neither Henry nor Sir William appeared. “Captain March is an extremely conscientious person,” said Lady Heritage. It was not a trait which appeared to commend itself to her. “I should think he must have interviewed the very black-beetles by now. Have you been passed, Jeffrey?” “I don’t know,” said Mr. Ember, “but it hasn’t taken away my appetite for tea.” In fact it had not. It was Raymond who ate nothing. Jane and Henry did not meet until dinner-time. As she dressed, Jane kept looking at herself in the glass. She was pale, and she must not look pale. She took a towel and rubbed her cheeks—that was better. Then a little later, when she looked again, her eyes were far too bright, her face unnaturally flushed. “As if any one was going to look at you at all—idiot!” she said. After this she kept her back to the mirror.