a good knitter, and her knitting generally lay about.

She popped into the dining-room to see if the table was well set
for dinner. It was, but in order to show that Marie did not know
everything, she rearranged somewhat the flowers in the central bowl.
Then she returned to the drawing-room, and sat down at the piano and
waited. The instant of arrival approached. Gilbert's punctuality was
absolute, always had been; sometimes it alarmed her. She could not
have to wait more than a minute or two, according to the inexactitude
of her clock.... The bell rang, and simultaneously she began to play a
five-finger exercise. Often in the old life she had executed upon him
this innocent subterfuge, to make him think she practised the piano
to a greater extent than she actually did, that indeed she was always
practising. It never occurred to her that he was not deceived.

Hear Marie fly to the front door! See Christine's face, see her body,
as in her pale, bright gown she peeps round the half-open door of the
drawing-room! She lives, then. Her eyes sparkle for the giver of all
good, for the adored, and her brow is puckered for him, and the jewels
on her hand burn for him, and every pleat of her garments visible and
invisible is pleated for him. She is a child. She has snatched up a
chocolate, and put it between her teeth, and so she offers the half
of it to him, smiling, silent. She is a child, but she is also a woman
intensely skilled in her art....

"Monster!" she said. "Come this way." And she led him down the tunnel
to the bedroom. There, in a corner of the bathroom, stood an antique
closed toilet-stand, such as was used by men in the days before
splashing and sousing were invented. She had removed it from the
drawing-room.