Through the bare, blindless windows, framing a sky so bluely luminous, came the swelling clamour of the assembling crowds, tinging the languid air as with some sultry fever. From the _Chausée_, music of an extraordinary intention--heated music, crude music, played with passionate élan to perfect time, conjured up, with vivid, heartrending prosaicness, the seething Boulevards beyond the high old creeper-covered walls. “I forget now, Mother, which of the Queens it is that will wear a velvet train of a beautiful orchid shade: But one of them will!” Sister Irene of the Incarnation was holding forth. “I must confess,” Mother Martinez remarked, who was peeling herself a peach, with an air of far attention: “I must confess, I should have liked to have cast my eye upon the _lingerie_....” “I would rather have seen the ballwraps, Mother, or the shoes, and evening slippers!” “Yes, or the fabulous jewels....” “Of course Sister Laura saw the _trousseau_?” But Laura made feint not to hear. Discipline relaxed, a number of nuns had collected provisions and were picnicking in the window, where Sister Innez (an ex-Repertoire actress) was giving some spirited renderings of her chief successful parts--_Jane de Simerose_, _Frou-Frou_, _Sappho_, _Cigarette_.... “My darling child! I always sleep all day and only revive when there’s _a Man_,” she was saying with an impudent look, sending the scandalised Sisters into delighted convulsions. Unable to endure it any longer, Laura crept away. A desire for air and solitude, led her towards the Recreation ground. After the hot refectory, sauntering in the silken shade of the old astounding cedars, was delightful quite. In the deserted alleys, the golden blossoms of the censia-trees, unable to resist the sun, littered in perfumed piles the ground, overcoming her before long with a sensation akin to _vertige_. Anxious to find her friend, Laura turned towards her cell. She found Sister Ursula leaning on her window-ledge all crouched up--like a Duchess on “a First Night.” “My dear, my dear, the _crowds_!” “Ursula?” “Yes, what is it?” “Perhaps I’ll go, since I’m in the way.” “Touchy Goose,” Sister Ursula murmured wheeling round with a glance of complex sweetness. “Ah, Ursula,” Laura sighed, smiling reproachfully at her friend. She had long almond eyes, one longer and larger than the other, that gave to her narrow, etiolated face, an exalted, mystic air. Her hair, wholly concealed by her full coif, would be inclined to rich copper or chestnut: Indeed, below the pinched and sensitive nostrils, a moustache (so slight as to be scarcely discernible) proved this beyond all controversy to be so. But perhaps the quality and beauty of her hands were her chief distinction. “Do you believe it would cause an earthquake, if we climbed out, dear little one, upon the leads?” she asked. “I had forgotten you overlooked the street by leaning out,” Laura answered, sinking fatigued to a little cane armchair.