"I worship music," said Mrs Jehoram. "I know nothing about it technically, but there is something in it—a longing, a wish...."
The Angel stared at her face. She met his eyes.
"You understand," she said. "I see you understand." He was certainly a very nice boy, sentimentally precocious perhaps, and with deliciously liquid eyes.
There was an interval of Chopin (Op. 40) played with immense precision.
Mrs Jehoram had a sweet face still, in shadow, with the light falling round her golden hair, and a curious theory flashed across the Angel's mind. The perceptible powder only supported his view of something infinitely bright and lovable caught, tarnished, coarsened, coated over.
"Do you," said the Angel in a low tone. "Are you ... separated from ... your world?"
"As you are?" whispered Mrs Jehoram.
"This is so—cold," said the Angel. "So harsh!" He meant the whole world.
"I feel it too," said Mrs Jehoram, referring to Siddermorton Home.