Then the glasses were empty again: Mrs. Thompson had disappeared through the door of communication.
On this side of the door lay all her working life, the struggle, the fight, the courageous plans, and the unflagging labours; on the other side of the door lay the object for which she had toiled, the end and aim of every brave endeavour.
"Enid, my darling, are you there?... Yates, is Miss Enid in?"
"Yes, ma'am, Miss Enid has lunched, and is upstairs—dressing for the drive."
Yates, the old servant, maid, housekeeper, and faithful friend, came bustling and smiling to the welcome sounds of her employer's kind voice.
Mrs. Thompson sat for a few minutes in the vacated dining-room, talking to Yates and hearing the domestic news.
The headache of Miss Enid, Yates reported, was much better; but she had not been out this morning. She seemed to be rather languid, and, as Yates guessed, perhaps felt a little dull and moped after the gaieties and excitements of the country-house visit from which she had just returned.
"Ah, well," said Mrs. Thompson cheerfully, "our drive will do her good. And now that the summer is coming on, she shall not want for occupation and amusement."
All through the snug little box of a house, filched out of the block of shop premises, there was evidence of the occupations and amusements of Miss Enid. Bookcases with choicely bound volumes of romance and poetry, elegant writing-desks, various musical instruments, materials for painting in oil or water colour, new inventions for the practice of miniature sculpture, the most costly photographic cameras, tennis rackets, hockey sticks, and other implements of sport and pastime—on this floor as on the upper floors, in dining-room, drawing-room, boudoir, as well as bedroom and dressing-room, were things that should provide a young lady with occupation and amusement.