When the letter was finished the Newlands life seemed very remote. She was alone in a strange, luxurious room that did not belong to her, lit by a hard electric light that had been put there by some hardworking mechanic to whom the house was just a house with electric fittings. She felt a touch of the half-numb half-feverish stupor that had been her daily mood at Banbury Park. She would go on teaching the Corrie children, but her evenings in future would be divided between unsuccessful efforts to put down her flaming or peaceful sunset scenes and to explain their importance to Eve. CHAPTER IX 1 But the next evening when Mr. Corrie came down for the week-end with a party of guests, Mrs. Corrie appeared with swift suddenness in Miriam’s room and glanced at her morning dress. “I say, missy, you’ll have to hurry up.” “Oh, I didn’t dress ... the house is full of strangers.” “No, it isn’t; there’s Mélie and Tom ... Tommy and Mélie.” “Yes, but I know there are crowds.” She did not want to meet the Cravens again, and the strangers would turn out to be some sort of people saying certain sorts of things over and over again, and if she went down she would not be able to get away as soon as she knew all about them. She would be fixed; obliged to listen. When anyone spoke to her, grimacing as the patronised governess or saying what she thought and being hated for it. “Crowds,” she repeated, as Mrs. Corrie placed a large lump in the centre of the blaze. They had her here, in this beautiful room and looked after her comfort as if she were a guest. “Nonsensy-nonsense. You _must_ come down and see the fun.” Miriam glanced at her empty table. In the drawer hidden underneath the table-cover were her block and paints. Presently she could, if she held firm, be alone, in a grey space inside this alien room, cold and lonely and with the beginning of something ... dark painful beginning of something that could not come if people were there.... Downstairs, warmth and revelry. “You _must_ come down and see the fun,” said Mrs. Corrie, getting up from the fire and trailing across the room with bent head. “A nun--a nun in amber satin,” thought Miriam, surveying her back. “_Want_ you to come down,” said Mrs. Corrie plaintively from the door. Cold air came in from the landing; the warmth of the room stirred to a strange vitality, the light glowed clearer within its ruby globe. The silvery clatter of entrée dishes came up from the hall. “All right,” said Miriam, turning exultantly to the chest of drawers.