She buried herself even more deeply in the paper. Poor Mary Kitson,
alas! found that, in some undefinable manner, the glory had departed
from her dolls. Adrian and Emily were, of a sudden, glassy and lumpy
abstractions of sawdust and china. Very timidly she raised her large,
stupid eyes and regarded Sarah. Sarah returned the glance and smiled.
Then she came close to Mary.

"It's better under there," she said, pointing to the shade of a friendly
tree.

"May I?" Mary said to her nurse with a frightened gasp.

"Well, now, don't you go far," said the nurse, with a fierce look at
Hortense.

"You like where you are?" asked Hortense, smiling more than ever. "You
'ave a good place?" Slowly the nurse yielded. The novelette was laid
aside.

Impossible to say what occurred under the tree. Now and again a rustle
of wind would send the colours from the trees to short branches loaded
with leaves of red gold, shivering through the air; a chequered, blazing
canopy covered the ground.

Mary Kitson had, it appeared, very little to say. She sat some way from
Sarah, clutching Adrian and Emily tightly to her breast, and always her
large, startled eyes were on Sarah's face. She did not move to drive the
leaves from her dress; her heart beat very fast, her cheeks were very
red.