"Come and sit by the window."
She obeyed him listlessly, and they sat down in the window seat that looked down over the little path leading round the house to the kitchen door.
"I do wish," the girl burst out suddenly, "that mother wouldn't have the Crichells here."
He stared at her. "But I thought you liked her. Why do you call her by her Christian name if you don't?"
"I don't say I don't like her. I saw you looking at his hands at dinner. Aren't they beastly?"
"Horrid. Has he done anything—anything you don't like?"
She shook her head. "Oh, no. But I—I wish they hadn't come."
As she spoke Wick's sister began to play, something very modern, of which he could make neither head nor tail. But she played brilliantly, and with what seemed almost unequalled facility, although he knew what hours of daily hard work went to its perfection.
Grisel leant back in her corner, and shut her eyes for a minute. She was really pale, and looked seriously troubled and puzzled. He turned and watched the listening group round the fire. Mrs. Crichell lay back in a low chair, her beautiful arms hanging loose over its sides. She was really lovely, the young man thought—as lovely, that is, as a woman of forty could possibly be, and Mr. Collier evidently agreed with him, for his eyes were fixed on her. Crichell had taken up a magazine, folded back the last page, and was rapidly sketching Maud Twiss, who sat looking away from him and did not see what he was doing. Twiss had gone to the telephone and Paul stood near the piano, watching Jenny, as her red head bobbed funnily over the keys as she played.