To see her now as she put the final touches to her room before leaving it, arranging a paper here and a paper there, going to the bookshelf and pushing back a book that jutted in front of the others, setting a chair against the wall, placing the blotting-pad exactly in the middle of the table, finally taking her hat and coat and putting them on with the same careful and almost automatic distinction--this sufficiently revealed her. She seemed, as she looked for the last time about the room with her bright eyes, like some sharp little bird, perched on a window-sill, looking beyond closed windows for new adventure. It was one of the striking points in her that her eyes always seemed to be searching for some disorder in some place outside her immediate vision. She closed the door behind her. As she stepped into the passage someone was coming down the staircase to her right, and looking up she saw that it was Rachel Beaminster. Rachel was on her way from her grandmother's room, and before she saw Miss Rand standing there, waiting to let her pass, her face was grave and, in that half-light, strangely white. Then, as she saw Miss Rand, she smiled-- "Good evening, Miss Rand." "Good evening, Miss Beaminster." "I'm afraid that this ball is giving you a lot of trouble." "I think that everything is arranged now, Miss Beaminster. I hope that it will be a great success." Rachel sighed and then laughed. "Don't I wish the whole stupid thing was over. And I expect you do too!" Miss Rand smiled a very little. "It's good for the servants," she said. "They're always happy when they're really busy." For a moment they stood there smiling. It occurred to Rachel that Miss Rand must be rather nice. She had never thought of her before as anything but Aunt Adela's secretary. "Good night, Miss Rand." "Good night, Miss Beaminster." II In Portland Place Miss Rand drew a little breath and paused. So many times during the last five years had she walked from Portland Place to Saxton Square, and from Saxton Square to Portland Place, that the streets and houses encountered by her had become individual, alive, always offering to her some fresh adventure or romance. Portland Place itself was no bad beginning, with its high white colour, its air, and its dark mysterious park hovering at the edge of it. If one had not known, Miss Rand thought, one might have supposed that just beyond it lay the sea, so fresh and full of breezes was the air. The light was yellow now and the houses black and sharp against the faint sky. In another half-hour the lamps would be lit. It was pleasant and fitting that the end of Portland Place should be guarded by the Round Church and the Queen's Hall. "Leave that calm and chaste society behind you," those places said, "but before you plunge into the wicked careless world (that is Oxford Circus) choose from us. Here you have religion or music, both if you will, but here at any rate we are, the very best of our kind."