“Go on, go on, do go on,” she laughed, clapping her hands.  “It’s delightful to hear you!”

“But why do you go?” Rachel demanded.

“I’ve been every Sunday of my life ever since I can remember,” Mrs. Flushing chuckled, as though that were a reason by itself.

Rachel turned abruptly to the window.  She did not know what it was that had put her into such a passion; the sight of Terence in the hall had confused her thoughts, leaving her merely indignant.  She looked straight at their own villa, half-way up the side of the mountain.  The most familiar view seen framed through glass has a certain unfamiliar distinction, and she grew calm as she gazed.  Then she remembered that she was in the presence of some one she did not know well, and she turned and looked at Mrs. Flushing.  Mrs. Flushing was still sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up, with her lips parted, so that her strong white teeth showed in two rows.

“Tell me,” she said, “which d’you like best, Mr. Hewet or Mr. Hirst?”

“Mr. Hewet,” Rachel replied, but her voice did not sound natural.

“Which is the one who reads Greek in church?” Mrs. Flushing demanded.

It might have been either of them and while Mrs. Flushing proceeded to describe them both, and to say that both frightened her, but one frightened her more than the other, Rachel looked for a chair.  The room, of course, was one of the largest and most luxurious in the hotel.  There were a great many arm-chairs and settees covered in brown holland, but each of these was occupied by a large square piece of yellow cardboard, and all the pieces of cardboard were dotted or lined with spots or dashes of bright oil paint.

“But you’re not to look at those,” said Mrs. Flushing as she saw Rachel’s eye wander.  She jumped up, and turned as many as she could, face downwards, upon the floor.  Rachel, however, managed to possess herself of one of them, and, with the vanity of an artist, Mrs. Flushing demanded anxiously, “Well, well?”

“It’s a hill,” Rachel replied.  There could be no doubt that Mrs. Flushing had represented the vigorous and abrupt fling of the earth up into the air; you could almost see the clods flying as it whirled.

Rachel passed from one to another.  They were all marked by something of the jerk and decision of their maker; they were all perfectly untrained onslaughts of the brush upon some half-realised idea suggested by hill or tree; and they were all in some way characteristic of Mrs. Flushing.

“I see things movin’,” Mrs. Flushing explained.  “So”—­she swept her hand through a yard of the air.  She then took up one of the cardboards which Rachel had laid aside, seated herself on a stool, and began to flourish a stump of charcoal.  While she occupied herself in strokes which seemed to serve her as speech serves others, Rachel, who was very restless, looked about her.

“Open the wardrobe,” said Mrs. Flushing after a pause, speaking indistinctly because of a paint-brush in her mouth, “and look at the things.”