"H'm," said Arachne, noncommittally.
She laid the stone down and started to move about, trailing several threads from her spinnerets. Lydia drew away a little. For a moment she watched Arachne, who appeared to be engaged in a kind of doodling, then her eyes returned to the aquamarine.
"I have a little collection of stones myself. Not as good as Mrs. Ferris's, of course, but one or two nice ones amongst them," she remarked.
"Oh," said Arachne, absent-minded as she worked out her pattern.
"I–I should rather like a nice aquamarine," said Lydia. "Suppose the door happened to have been left open just a little.…"
"There!" said Arachne, with satisfaction. "Isn't that the prettiest doily you ever saw?"
She paused to admire her work.
Lydia looked at it, too. The pattern seemed to her to show a lack of subtlety, but she agreed tactfully. "It's delightful! Absolutely charming! I wish I could — I mean, I don't know how you do it."
"One has just a little talent, you know," said Arachne, with undeceiving modesty. "You were saying something?" she added.
Lydia repeated her earlier remark.