She straightness on the wood bestows,
To her the meadow sweetness owes.
Nothing could make the river be
So crystal pure but only she.
She, yet more pure, sweet, straight and fair
Than gardens, woods, meads, rivers are.’”
And as Clare said these lines, with her mind dwelling on the country, suddenly it took a swallow’s angle, and she thought of London again and the life of the pictures that she had come to know. Swiftly she ran downstairs and stood in turn before each one of them. The morning light touched them unsympathetically. They seemed strangely aloof. Was it because her thoughts had been among the green living things of the country, her memory out in the fresh, sweet air of Nature, that these pictures seemed so dead?
She stood before Lewis the actor. He gripped his sword and looked away. Before Mrs. Inchbald. She leaned from her chair, gazing intently, but not at Clare. Miss Ridge smiled, but the smile was not for her. Clare knew if she turned away, Miss Ridge would still be smiling. She stood before Kitty Fischer; but nothing that Clare could do or say would make her look up.
“Miss Ross will say something,” thought Clare. But no spoken word came from Miss Ross. Yet as Clare stood looking, she remembered two lines, she knew not whence they came—
Endurance is the noblest quality,