"Oh, come up, dear ole fing," she cried with tender irony; but _irony_. "Paw fing. Is it _very_ tired?" But her gentle arms and hands were perfectly, wonderfully understanding; though her face withdrawn from her gentle kiss still mocked; always within the limpid brown eyes that belabouring, rallying, mocking spirit. She held her smile radiantly, against a long troubled stare, and then it broke into her abrupt gurgle of laughter. "_Come_ along," she cried and carried a guest at a run along the passage and through the swing door. It was the downstairs spare room.... Miriam had expected the winding stair, the room upstairs, where all her shorter visits were stored up. She was to be down here at the centre of the house, just behind low casements, right on the garden, touched by the sound of the sea. And within the curtain-shaded sound-bathed green-lit space there was a deeper remoteness than even in the far high room, so weirdly shaped by the burning roof; its orange light always full of a strange listening silence.... "_Alma._ How _perfectly_ glorious." She stood still, turned away, as Alma closed the door, contemplating the screened light falling everywhere on spaces of pure fresh colour, against which the deep tones of single objects shone brightly. Alma neighed gently and with little gurgles of laughter put her hands about her and gently shook her. "It _is_ rather a duck of a room. It _is_ rather a duck of a room." Another little affectionate, clutching shake. Her face was crinkled, her eyes twinkling with mirth; as if she gave the room a little sportive push that left it bashed amusingly sideways. In just this way had she jested when they walked, wearing long pigtails, down the Upper Richmond Road. If she could have echoed the words and joined in Alma's laughter, she would have been, in Alma's eyes, suitably launched on her visit. But she couldn't. _Amused_ approval was an outrage on something. Yet the kind of woman who would be gravely pleased and presently depart to her own quarters proud and possessive, would also leave everything unexpressed. But that kind of person would not have achieved this kind of room ... and to Alma the wonder of it was of course inseparable from the adventure of getting it together. It was something in the independent effect of things that was violated by regarding them merely as successful larks.... Yet Alma's sense of beauty, her recognition of its unfamiliar forms was keener, more experienced, more highly-wrought than her own. "I shall spend the whole of my time in here, doing absolutely nothing."