it, and it fell dead.

Margaret sprang up with a cry.

'Oh, how cruel! How hatefully cruel!'

'Are you convinced now?' asked Haddo coolly.

The two women hurried to the doorway. They were frightened and disgusted.
Oliver Haddo was left alone with the snake-charmer.




5


Dr Porhoët had asked Arthur to bring Margaret and Miss Boyd to see him on
Sunday at his apartment in the Île Saint Louis; and the lovers arranged
to spend an hour on their way at the Louvre. Susie, invited to accompany
them, preferred independence and her own reflections.

To avoid the crowd which throngs the picture galleries on holidays,
they went to that part of the museum where ancient sculpture is kept. It
was comparatively empty, and the long halls had the singular restfulness
of places where works of art are gathered together. Margaret was filled
with a genuine emotion; and though she could not analyse it, as Susie,
who loved to dissect her state of mind, would have done, it strangely
exhilarated her. Her heart was uplifted from the sordidness of earth,
and she had a sensation of freedom which was as delightful as it was