“Stay at home,” said Ridley.  “I often wish I had!  Everyone ought to stay at home.  But, of course, they won’t.”

Mrs. Paley conceived a certain grudge against Ridley, who seemed to be criticising her habits after an acquaintance of five minutes.

“I believe in foreign travel myself,” she stated, “if one knows one’s native land, which I think I can honestly say I do.  I should not allow any one to travel until they had visited Kent and Dorsetshire—­Kent for the hops, and Dorsetshire for its old stone cottages.  There is nothing to compare with them here.”

“Yes—­I always think that some people like the flat and other people like the downs,” said Mrs. Elliot rather vaguely.

Hirst, who had been eating and drinking without interruption, now lit a cigarette, and observed, “Oh, but we’re all agreed by this time that nature’s a mistake.  She’s either very ugly, appallingly uncomfortable, or absolutely terrifying.  I don’t know which alarms me most—­a cow or a tree.  I once met a cow in a field by night.  The creature looked at me.  I assure you it turned my hair grey.  It’s a disgrace that the animals should be allowed to go at large.”

“And what did the cow think of him?” Venning mumbled to Susan, who immediately decided in her own mind that Mr. Hirst was a dreadful young man, and that although he had such an air of being clever he probably wasn’t as clever as Arthur, in the ways that really matter.

“Wasn’t it Wilde who discovered the fact that nature makes no allowance for hip-bones?” enquired Hughling Elliot.  He knew by this time exactly what scholarships and distinction Hirst enjoyed, and had formed a very high opinion of his capacities.

But Hirst merely drew his lips together very tightly and made no reply.

Ridley conjectured that it was now permissible for him to take his leave.  Politeness required him to thank Mrs. Elliot for his tea, and to add, with a wave of his hand, “You must come up and see us.”

The wave included both Hirst and Hewet, and Hewet answered, “I should like it immensely.”

The party broke up, and Susan, who had never felt so happy in her life, was just about to start for her walk in the town with Arthur, when Mrs. Paley beckoned her back.  She could not understand from the book how Double Demon patience is played; and suggested that if they sat down and worked it out together it would fill up the time nicely before dinner.

Chapter X

Among the promises which Mrs. Ambrose had made her niece should she stay was a room cut off from the rest of the house, large, private—­a room in which she could play, read, think, defy the world, a fortress as well as a sanctuary.  Rooms, she knew, became more like worlds than rooms at the age of twenty-four.  Her judgment was correct, and when she shut the door Rachel entered an enchanted place, where the poets sang and things fell into their right proportions.  Some days after the vision of the hotel by night she was sitting alone, sunk in an arm-chair, reading a brightly-covered red volume lettered on the back Works of Henrik Ibsen.  Music was open on the piano, and books of music rose in two jagged pillars on the floor; but for the moment music was deserted.