On the plush sofa, which had been moved from its place against the wall and drawn right across the bow of the window, Violet lay, veiled from the street by white Nottingham lace curtains. Pure white they were; such whiteness as was not to be seen in the newest houses in the Avenue. The furniture had been polished till it looked like new. All in a row Ranny's silver prize cups shone again as on the day when he bore them from the field. The smell of dust was gone. Instead of it there came toward him a sweet smell of violets and of woman's hair. On the sofa in the window Violet lay like a suburban odalisk, voluptuous, heavy-scented. The flesh of her neck and arms showed rosy under the thin, white muslin of her gown that clung to her in slender folds and fell away, revealing the prone beauty of her body. The dim light came on her through the Nottingham lace curtains, as light might come through some Oriental lattice of fretted ivory. She bloomed, like a heavy flower, languid, sullen-sweet, heavy-scented. It was Thursday, the twenty-fifth. Ransome looked about him and smiled. "I say, this is a bit of all right. Did you do it yourself, Vi?" Her large eyes opened on him in the pale light; dark they were with a sensuous mockery in them. "Do I look as if I'd done it myself?" she said. She certainly didn't. "Did you get a woman in, then, or what?" She hesitated a moment. "Yes. I got a woman in." And the miracle continued; so that Ranny said that Granville was not such a bad little fellow, after all, if you took him the right way and humored him. Then he began to make discoveries. The first was on the Sunday morning when he went to his drawer for a pair of clean socks. He had no hope of finding so much as one whole one. And yet, there were all his socks sorted, and folded, and laid in a row; and every single one of them had been made whole with exquisite darning. The same with his shirts and vests and things; and they had been in rags when he had last looked at them. And something had been done to his cuffs and collars, too. Then there was the Baby. Her hair, that used to cling to her little head in flat rings as her sleep had crushed it, was all brushed up and fluffed into feathery ducks' tails that shone gold in gold. She came to him lifting up her little clean pinafore and frock to show him. She knew that she was fascinating. "It must be Mother, bless her," he said to himself. But it wasn't Mother; or if it was she lied about it. Then Violet let it out. It was on the night of Tuesday, the first of August, at bedtime. Ransome was leaning over the cot where the Baby lay, tossed half naked between sleep and waking, drowsy with dreams. She was adorable with her Little Rose face half unfolded, and the Honeypot smell of her silken skin. Violet stood beside him, looking at the two, sullenly, but with a certain unwonted tolerance. She was strange and still, as if the unquiet spirit that had torn her was appeased.