"Ready to turn over, dears?" she asked the little boys. This time she
was in her usual control of the machine, regulated what she did from
the first motion to the last, made her voice casual but not elaborately
so, and put one arm around Mark's slim little shoulder with just the
right degree of uninterest in those old and faded photographs.

Very deep down, at the edge of consciousness, something asked her, "Why
did you try to hide that photograph?"

She could not answer this question. She didn't know why, any more than
the little boys did. And it wouldn't do now, with the need to be
mistress-of-the-house till a call ended, to stop to try to think it out.
Later on, tonight, after the children were in bed, when she was brushing
her hair . . . oh, probably she'd find as you so often did, when you went
after the cause of some unexpected little feeling, that it came from a
meaningless fortuitous association of ideas, like Elly's hatred of
grape-jelly because she had once taken some bitter medicine in it.

"'View of the Roman Aqueduct, taken from the tramway line to Tivoli,'"
read out Paul.

"Very pretty view," said Mr. Welles.

Mr. Marsh's silences were as abysmal as his speech was Niagara-like on
occasion. He said nothing.

Elly stirred and looked toward the doorway. Touclé stood there, her
shoe-button eyes not blinking in the lamp-light although she probably
had been sitting on the steps of the kitchen, looking out into the