loosely behind, she had something of a warm, maternal look. Thinking this
of herself, she arched her eyebrows and her rather heavy eyelids, with a
little flicker of a smile, and for a moment her grey eyes looked amused
and wicked, a little sardonic, out of her transfigured Madonna face.

Then, resuming her air of womanly patience--she was really fatally
self-determined--she went with a little jerk towards the door. Her eyes
were slightly reddened.

She passed down the wide hall, and through a door at the end. Then she
was in the farm premises. The scent of dairy, and of farm-kitchen, and of
farm-yard and of leather almost overcame her: but particularly the scent
of dairy. They had been scalding out the pans. The flagged passage in
front of her was dark, puddled and wet. Light came out from the open
kitchen door. She went forward and stood in the doorway. The farm-people
were at tea, seated at a little distance from her, round a long, narrow
table, in the centre of which stood a white lamp. Ruddy faces, ruddy
hands holding food, red mouths working, heads bent over the tea-cups:
men, land-girls, boys: it was tea-time, feeding-time. Some faces caught
sight of her. Mrs. Wernham, going round behind the chairs with a large
black teapot, halting slightly in her walk, was not aware of her for a
moment. Then she turned suddenly.

'Oh, is it Madam!' she exclaimed. 'Come in, then, come in! We're at tea.'
And she dragged forward a chair.

'No, I won't come in,' said Isabel, 'I'm afraid I interrupt your meal.'

'No--no--not likely, Madam, not likely.'