“Oh, _Boy_.” Sybil flung her arms tightly round her thin body and sat grinning at her brother. Her old blue and white striped overall, her sparse hair and the ugly large gap between her two large front teeth seemed to set her apart from her surroundings. For a moment it seemed to Miriam that the large quiet room looking through two high windows on to a stretch of tree-shaded lawn, the cheerful little spread of delicate white china at one end of the long table, the preserves and cakes, the cress sandwiches and thin bread and butter were all there for her appreciation alone, the children somehow profane and accidental, having no right to be there. But they had been in these surroundings, the girl for twelve the boy for eight years. They had never known anything else. For years life had been for them just what it was to-day--breakfast in bed, chirping at their mother from the dressing-rooms where they slept, and scolding at Stokes as she waited on their toilet; jocularly and impatiently learning lessons from little text-books for an hour or so in the morning, spending their afternoons cantering about the commons and along the sandy roadways with the groom; driving with their mother or walking with the governess and every day coming in at the end of the afternoon to this cosy, dainty grown-up tea, with their strange untroubled brooding faces. They would grow up and be exactly like their parents. They did not know anything about their fate. It was a kind of prison. Perhaps they knew. Perhaps that was what they were always brooding over. No, they did not mind. Their musings were tranquil. They were waiting. They had silent conversations all the time. To be with them after being so long with the straining, determined, secretly ambitious children at Banbury Park was a great relief ... the way they moved their heads and used their hands ... the boy’s hands were wonderful, the palest fine brown silk, quick eloquent little claws, promising understanding and support. Fine little hands and steady gentle brown eyes. “Bays.” “_Bright_ bays.” “Roans.” “_Strawberry_ roans.” “_Chestnuts._” “_Chestnut_ bays.” The children sat facing each other, each with clasped hands, and eyes lit with dreams. Miriam listened. Bay, then, must be that curious liver colour that was neither brown nor chestnut. “Our ponies are bay,” said Sybil quickly, with flushed face. “Boy’s and mine, the brougham and victoria horses are chestnut bays and we’ve got two dogs, a whippet bitch, she’s in the stables now, and a Great Dane; I’m going to have a Willoughby pug pup on my birthday.” 2