The newly-lit wood fire blazed cheerfully when they went in, but its amiable light was immediately quenched by the electric light Wemyss switched on at the door. From the middle of the ceiling it poured down so strongly that Miss Entwhistle wished she had brought her sun-shade. The blinds were drawn, and there in front of the window was the table where Everard had sat writing--she remembered every word of Lucy's account of it on that July afternoon of Vera's death. It was now April; still well over three months to the first anniversary of that dreadful day, and here he was married again, and to, of all people in the world, her Lucy. There were so many strong, robust-minded young women in the world, so many hardened widows, so many thick-skinned persons of mature years wanting a comfortable home, who wouldn't mind Everard because they wouldn't love him and therefore wouldn't feel,--why should Fate have ordered that it should just be her Lucy? No, she didn't like him, she couldn't like him. He might, and she hoped he was, be all Lucy said, be wonderful and wholesome and natural and all the rest of it, but if he didn't seem so to her what, as far as she was concerned, was the good of it? The fact is that by the time Miss Entwhistle got into the library she was very angry. Even the politest worm, she said to herself, the most conciliatory, sensible worm, fully conscious that wisdom points to patience, will nevertheless turn on its niece's husband if trodden on too heavily. The way Wemyss had ordered her not to go up to Lucy.... Particularly enraging to Miss Entwhistle was the knowledge of her weak position, uninvited in his house. Wemyss, standing on the hearthrug in front of the blaze, filled his pipe. How well she knew that attitude and that action. How often she had seen both in her drawing-room in London. And hadn't she been kind to him? Hadn't she always, when she was hostess and he was guest, been hospitable and courteous? No, she didn't like him. She sat down in one of the immense chairs, and had the disagreeable sensation that she was sitting down in Wemyss hollowed out. The two little red spots were brightly on her cheek-bones,--had been there, indeed, ever since the beginning of dinner. Wemyss filled his pipe with his customary deliberation, saying nothing. 'I believe he's enjoying himself,' flashed into her mind. 'Enjoying being in a temper, and having me to bully.' 'Well?' she asked, suddenly unbearably irritated. 'Oh it's no good taking that tone with me,' he said, continuing carefully to fill his pipe. 'Really, Everard,' she said, ashamed of him, but also ashamed of herself. She oughtn't to have let go her grip on herself and said, 'Well?' with such obvious irritation. The coffee came. 'No thank you,' said Miss Entwhistle. He helped himself. The coffee went. 'Perhaps,' said Miss Entwhistle in a very polite voice when the door had been shut by Chesterton, 'you'll tell me what it is you wish to say.'