Rachel was lying on the Chesterfield. Her left cheek, resting on her left hand, was embedded in the large cushion. A large coil of her tawny hair, displaced, had spread loosely over the dark green of the sofa. The left foot hung limp over the edge of the sofa; the jutting angle of the right knee divided sharply the drapery of her petticoat into two systems, and her right shoe with its steel buckle pressed against the yielding back of the Chesterfield. The right arm lay lissom like a snake across her breast. All her muscles were lax, and every full curve of her body tended downward in response to the negligent pose. Her eyes were shut, her face flushed; and her chest heaved with the slow regularity of her deep, unconscious breathing. Louis as he gazed was enchanted. This was not Miss Fleckring, the companion and household help of Mrs. Maldon, but a nymph, a fay, the universal symbol of his highest desire.... He would have been happy to kiss the glinting steel buckle, so feminine, so provocative, so coy. The tight rounded line of the waist, every bend of the fingers, the fall of the eye-lashes--all were exquisite and precious to him after the harsh, unsatisfying, desolating masculinity of Horrocleave's. This was the divine reward of Horrocleave's, the sole reason of Horrocleave's. Horrocleave's only existed in order that this might exist and be maintained amid cushions and the softness of calm and sequestered interiors, waiting for ever in acquiescence for the arrival of manful doers from Horrocleave's. The magnificent pride of male youth animated Louis. He had not a care in the world. Even his long-unpaid tailor's bill was magically abolished. He was an embodiment of exulting hope and fine aspirations. Rachel stirred, dimly aware of the invasion. And Louis, actuated by the most delicate regard for her sensitive modesty, vanished back for a moment into the hall, until she should have fitted herself for his beholding. Mrs. Tams had come from somewhere into the hall. She was munching a square of bread and cold bacon, and she curtsied, exclaiming-- "It's never Mester Fores! That's twice her's been woke up this day!" "Who's there?" Rachel called out, and her voice had the breaking, bewildered softness of a woman's in the dark, emerging from a dream. "Sorry! Sorry!" said Louis, behind the door. "It's all right," she reassured him.