Joan Loyalty was dark, or rather her hair was dark, and darker than ever against the crimson cushion. But her face was fair, English fair; and many generations had gone to the establishing of her complexion and the exact shaping of her delicate aquiline nose. But it was her eyes that were important, to the student of such things. Joan Loyalty belonged to the society of the day, and of that society her face, the oval sort, was, her friends said in their loose way, in the best way “typical.” She was of the type early twentieth century, but her gestures, and lack of them, were ancient enough, for they were fully expressive of that which really differentiates men from beasts, the social quality of being tired. But beneath that manner, that classical insolence which is inadequately called affectation, lay a Joan who was as sudden and as simple as the first woman. And that is why her eyes were important, to the student of such things, for in them was that thing which defies the analysing of novelists and demagogues, the thoughtful look which may only be thinking of a walk in a field with a dog and a stick, the curious, absent look which can smell the sea from a long way off. At last Mrs. Loyalty lit her cigarette, and she rose from the sofa, and for a few minutes she listened to the murmuring of the leaves in the square; and then she crossed the dimness of the room to a bell-button, and pressed it. Smith came, and she said: “Downstairs in the study you will find a book, probably on the small table by the window. A slim, blue book, by a Mr. Beerbohm. Please bring it to me.” The shadow of Smith hovered doubtfully among the shadows by the door. “Mr. Loyalty is in the study, madam, and told me he was not to be disturbed.” “Ah,” said Mrs. Loyalty softly. And she smiled, and when she smiled you understood why dogs liked her at once. “All right, Smith,” she said. “I will fetch it myself.” The shadow of Smith vanished in a flickering of candles, but Mrs. Loyalty did not follow him at once. She stood where Ralph Loyalty had stood, with her back to the great Adam fireplace; in a gesture of tired thought she clasped her hands behind her head, and from the motionless cigarette between her lips the smoke floated upwards without a curve until it faded, for she was forgetting to draw it. Then, suddenly, she dropped the half-smoked cigarette into the empty grate, an untidy habit of hers which her husband could not ever quite overlook, and left the room. The quality of silence was very noticeable about the figure of Mrs. Loyalty: it had been favourably commented on by distinguished foreigners, who say that though foreign women are noisy talkers, Englishwomen are noisy walkers; which, however, sounds like a generalisation, and should be mistrusted as such.