Evelyn was pleased to see that her room had two windows overlooking the garden.  There was a table covered by a cloth at which she could write, and she bent over the bowl of roses and wondered which kind nun had gathered them.  The Reverend Mother left her, saying that she would be told when supper was ready, and on looking round the room she perceived her portmanteau, which the lay sister had not unstrapped.  She would have to unstrap it herself.  She remembered that she had brought very few things with her, and yet she was surprised at the smallness of her luggage.  For she usually took half-a-dozen dresses with her, now she had only brought one change, a grey alpaca.  She thought she might have left her dressing-case behind, a plain brush and comb would have been all she needed.  But at the last moment, she had felt that she could not do without these bottles of scent and brushes and nicknacks; they had seemed indispensable.  The dressing-case was Owen’s influence still pursuing her.  She had not known why she was compelled to bring the dressing-case, now she knew—­Owen!  Never would she be able to wholly separate herself from him.  He had become part of her.

As she stood in the convent room noticing the beeswaxed floor and the two rugs, one by the small iron bed, she remembered a hunting morning three years ago at Riversdale.  She had gone to Owen’s room to see if he were ready.  A multitude of orders were being given there, the valet was searching anxiously in the large wardrobe, piled high with many various coats and trousers; Owen stood before the looking-glass tying a white scarf, and two footmen watched each movement, dreading a mistake.  She remembered that she had been amused at the time, and she never recalled the scene without smiling.  But she had liked Owen better for the innumerable superfluities, all of which were necessary to his happiness, the breakdown of any one of which made him the most miserable man alive.  She remembered how she had secretly imitated him, and how she had gathered about her a mass of superfluous necessities.  But they had never become necessities to her, they had always galled her.  It was in a spirit of perversity she had imitated him.  She had always felt it to be wrong to eat peaches at five francs a piece, and had always been aware of an inward resentment against the extravagance of a reserved carriage on the railway and private saloon on board the boat.  She had always desired a simple life; the life of these nuns was a simple life, simpler perhaps than she cared for.  There was no hot water in her room, she wondered how she would wash her hands, and smiling at her philosophical reflections, she thought how Owen would laugh if he could see her in her present situation—­in a convent, crying out for a constant supply of hot water and her maid.  A religious life with home comforts, that was what she wanted.