Tommy pushed his hat a little up from one eye, and turned a meditative and mildly surprised regard upon his sister. Her remark had had a flavour of unusualness. But he did not comment upon it; it was as if, in the momentary pause that followed his glance, something between them, very definite, very permanent in its existence, entirely unquestioned, because it had always been there, and hardly ever alluded to in words, because they were too close to each other and too unsentimental, took more definite and visible shape. Their friendship, their close comradeship, their affection, stood in that moment between them, recognized mutely of both. The kingdoms might fall, but that stood. Thus they did not word it to themselves; but, unformed, the knowledge illumined the consciousness of both. But after that moment's pause Tommy returned to normalities. 'I grant you your luck; in fact, I might envy it you if I was less sweet-natured. Mine, of course, is less vividly striking, as Mrs. Venables would put it. But no matter; never be ungenerous on Sunday, and I'm glad you should have a happy life.' Betty dragged him up forcibly by the hands, and they went up the beach to Mass in the little church. That illuminated moment of insight seemed to walk between them to the doors. After Mass they went to the Albergo Vittoria, and had lunch on the terrace. They talked then of the Venables. Betty said she had had her last sitting. 'I should like her to sit to me,' Tommy said; 'the way she stands, don't you know, with her head back'--the gesture of his own caught it not unsuccessfully--'and her eyes when she's going to smile. And the way her upper lip's so like her chin.' Betty nodded. She, too, had gathered all that in the rarefied mountain air of the studio. 'I wish she'd come and see us, as the others do. Why doesn't she like us more?' It was a simple question, thrown out casually and without much wondering; after all, every one cannot like everybody else. But it was curious how Tommy grew abruptly red. 'How do you mean like us? I should think she does, doesn't she? Why--why shouldn't she?' Betty's eyes consideringly took him in. He seemed, from his stammer grown aggressive, to feel an interest. Obviously he had been moved--moved a good deal--by 'the way she stands, don't you know, and her eyes when she's going to smile.' 'Well, you see,' Betty amended, 'she's too keen on her work, I expect, to want to see much of anyone. I dare say that's all.' Tommy was a little appeased. 'She always talks a lot to me when I meet her.' Betty's doubting eyebrows became a mark of interrogation. She demurred, not to the 'lot of talk,' but to the apportionment of it--the order, in fact, of the personal pronouns. Tommy frowned stubbornly, holding to it, and drank a glass of wine with a defiant regard over the brim. Betty, looking at him with puzzled eyes, at last shook a despairing head.