“Both the Master and Miss Aline are out, Miss,” said Hannah, with a good-natured smile. “He has gone into town on business, and Miss Aline, went out a little while ago with her young man. But they'll be back for lunch. Won't you come in and wait, Miss?” Norma, vaguely resenting the familiar address of the servant and her slatternly appearance, hesitated for a moment before deciding to enter. Hannah showed her into the drawing-room and retired. It was a small dark room looking on to the back. Part of it had been cut off when the house had been altered, so as to construct the studio staircase, which contained one of the original windows. Norma felt strangely ill at ease in the room. The prim, cheap furniture, the threadbare carpet, the flimsy girlish contrivances at decoration, gave the place an air of shabby gentility. The gilt mirror was starred with spots and had a crack across the corner. Some of Jimmie's socks and underwear lay on the table for mending. They were much darned, and fresh holes could not fail to meet the eye that rested but momentarily on the pile. To mend these would in the future be her duty. She took up an undervest shrinkingly and shook it out; then folded it again and closed her eyes.... She could not wait there: the gloom depressed her. The studio would be brighter and more familiar. She went downstairs. Nothing in the room she knew so well was changed, yet it seemed to wear a different aspect. The homely charm had vanished. Here, too, shabbiness and poverty stared at her. The morning light streaming through the great high window showed pitilessly the cracks and stains and missing buttons of the old leathern suite, and the ragged holes in the squares of old carpet laid upon the boards. It was a mere bleak workshop, not a room for human habitation. The pictures on the walls and easels ceased to possess decorative or even intimate value. The large picture of the faun that had exercised so great an influence upon her had been despatched to its purchaser, and in its place was a hopeless gap. She sat down in her accustomed chair, and once more strove to realise the future. There would be children who would need her care. On herself would all the sordid burdens fall. She saw herself a soured woman, worn with the struggle to make ends meet, working with her hands at menial tasks. The joy of Life! She laughed mirthlessly.