The moment the basket chair received her the downstairs world was about her again; circling, clamorous with the incidents of her passage from lonely exposure to the shelter of Mrs. Harcourt’s so swiftly offered wing, from beneath which, with its owner assured of the hardness of what it sheltered, she could move freely forth in any direction. The two Le Mesras—that was her pronunciation of Le Mesurier?—Three Chators. Mrs. Sneyde and Maud Something at the little table behind ... Hollebone. Maud Hollebone. The American, leaving. Interest hesitated between Harry Vereker already a little diminished, and the Russian: the reincarnated, attractive, ultimately unsatisfactory Tansley Street foreigner? Someone was tapping at the door. She opened it upon Mrs. Harcourt offering a small tray, transformed to motherliness by a voluminous dressing-gown. When she had gone she vanished utterly. There she was, actually in the next room, yet utterly forgettable. And yet she threw across the days ahead a strange deep light. The steaming chocolate and the little English biscuits disappeared too quickly, leaving hunger. The French window was made fast by a right-angle hand-piece, very stiff, that gave suddenly with a dreadfully audible clang. The door creaked open. Racing the advancing air she was beneath the downy billow before it reached her. It took her fevered face with its batallions of needles, stole up her nostrils to her brain, bore her down into the uttermost depths of sleep. CHAPTER III From which she awoke in light that seemed for a moment to be beyond the confines of earth. It was as if all her life she had travelled towards this radiance, and was now within it, clear of the past, at an ultimate destination. How long had it been there, quizzically patient, waiting for her to be aware of it? It was sound, that had wakened her and ceased now that she was looking and listening; become the inaudible edge of a sound infinitely far away. Brilliant light, urgently describing the outdoor scene. But she was unwilling to stir and break the radiant stillness. Close at hand a bell buzzed sharply. Another, and then a third far away down the corridor. People ringing their day into existence, free to ring their day into existence when they pleased. She was one of them; and for to-day she would wait awhile, give the bell-ringers time to be up and gone down to breakfast while she kept intact within this miracle of light the days ahead that with the sounding of her own bell would be already in process of spending. But perhaps there was a time-limit for breakfasts? Screwing round to locate the bell with the minimum of movement she paused in sheer surprise of well-being. Of the shattering journey there was not a trace. Nor of the morning weariness following social excitements.