'At any rate,' she said, scolding in tones too naked with love, I don't
like it.'

'_Go on from Allegro_,' said Helena, pointing with her bow to the place
on Louisa's score of the Mozart sonata. Louisa obediently took the
chords, and the music continued.

A young man, reclining in one of the wicker arm-chairs by the fire,
turned luxuriously from the girls to watch the flames poise and dance
with the music. He was evidently at his ease, yet he seemed a stranger
in the room.

It was the sitting-room of a mean house standing in line with hundreds
of others of the same kind, along a wide road in South London. Now and
again the trams hummed by, but the room was foreign to the trams and to
the sound of the London traffic. It was Helena's room, for which she was
responsible. The walls were of the dead-green colour of August foliage;
the green carpet, with its border of polished floor, lay like a square
of grass in a setting of black loam. Ceiling and frieze and fireplace
were smooth white. There was no other colouring.

The furniture, excepting the piano, had a transitory look; two light
wicker arm-chairs by the fire, the two frail stands of dark, polished
wood, the couple of flimsy chairs, and the case of books in the
recess--all seemed uneasy, as if they might be tossed out to leave the
room clear, with its green floor and walls, and its white rim of
skirting-board, serene.

On the mantlepiece were white lustres, and a small soapstone Buddha from