flames in the belly of one of the furnaces. She began suddenly to feel tired again and filled with despair.
"It's like her to keep an older woman waiting," she thought. "Probably she knows well enough why I've come."
She began to tap the carpet with the toe of her shoe and at last she rose and began to walk about, as if she felt that only by activity could she throw off from her the softening effect of that quiet room. She halted presently before the oval portrait, framed in gilt, of Mary's mother, a very pretty woman, with dark hair and a spirited eye . . . a woman such as Mary might have been if she hadn't married that John Conyngham and had her spirit subdued. Well (thought Emma) she seemed nevertheless to have too much spirit for her own good or the good of any one else.
She was standing thus when Mary came in, dressed in a mauve frock, and looking pale and a little nervous. Emma thought, "She knows why I've come. It's on her conscience. She's afraid of me already."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Downes," said Mary, "but my sister-in-law has gone out, and I couldn't come down until both children were asleep."
It was odd, but her voice had upon Emma the same effect as the room. It seemed to sap the foundations of her assurance and strength by its very gentleness. It was strange how subdued and quiet Mary seemed, almost as if (Emma thought suspiciously) she had forgotten her early troubles and was now shamelessly and completely happy. Feeling that if she did not begin at once, she would not accomplish her plan, Emma plunged.
