Tea came. Lights went up all over the room; brilliant light shone down upon the stately Queen Anne service, shone through the thinness of the shallow flowered cups. “Tea,” cried Miriam, through the shifting of chairs that followed the coming of the light, “should never be drunk from cold white cups.” Miss Holland laughed her laugh, and began with large, composed movements to pour out. At once her appearance was redeemed. For a moment Miriam sat basking in her manner. Then her eyes were drawn to two tall figures risen together from deep chairs far away. “One ought,” she went on to lend a casual air to her first inspection of fellow-members, “to drink down to a pattern.” They were without hats and therefore residents. And unexpectedly impressive. “Good faience,” Miss Holland was saying, “is certainly a great enhancement of the charm of the tea-table.” They were most strange. They radiated a definitely familiar quality as they stood there gazing down the room. At nothing. There was no trace of the awareness of exposure that set the faces of the women sitting about within view, large-hatted in deep chairs; awareness or careful unawareness. Yet as they moved, now, slowly along the clear spaces of the room, they were visibly the figures of an ordeal. Stately in their white-robed splendour, they were still piteous. Something was dispelling the conventional charm usually inseparable from the spectacle of beauty, tall and well-clothed, moving slowly through a room. The depth of her interest inspired Miriam to feed her conversation with Miss Holland and remain at the same time free to watch. The mystery cleared as the figures drew near. They were sisters, the one quite ordinary, fully aware and fitted out with the regulation feminine charm of bearing. Conscious of piled brown hair, of brilliant oval cheeks, of dark and lively eyes. The upturning bow of her mouth was set in a smile. So it would be set, thought Miriam, years ahead, when the nose and the chin began to approach each other. She was the elder. But her few extra years, the ardour of her head and her splendid form, were in leash to the being of the other. She it was who came unseeing and produced the strange effect. Slender, in childish muslin beside her sister’s opulent sophisticated lace, she was formidable. Below her dark hair, drawn flat to the shape of her head, yet set round it like a mist, was the strong calm face of a healthy child, a mask clear of expression and colourless but for the eyes that were startling. Life flowed from her eyes as if it would wither the air before them. Where was she? Whence, round-faced child, had she gathered her wealth of suffering? Her beauty was the beauty of a transfiguration. Here, on this plain afternoon, at the Belmont, amongst friends. Reluctantly, as they came quite near, Miriam averted her screened gaze and met the eyes of the other. Here was conciliation, a deprecating fearfulness changing suddenly as she came in view of Miss Holland.