Ellen sat very trim and erect beside Joanna in the trap.  She wore a neat grey coat and skirt, obviously not of local, nor indeed of English, make, and a little toque of flowers.  She had taken Joanna’s breath away on Rye platform; it had been very much like old times when she came home for the holidays and checked the impulse of her sister’s love by a baffling quality of self-containment.  Joanna, basing her expectations on the Bible story of the Prodigal Son rather than on the experiences of the past winter, had looked for a subdued penitent, surfeited with husks, who, if not actually casting herself at her sister’s feet and offering herself as her servant, would at least have a hang-dog air and express her gratitude for so much forgiveness.  Instead of which Ellen had said—­“Hullo, Jo—­it’s good to see you again,” and offered her a cool, delicately powdered cheek, which Joanna’s warm lips had kissed with a queer, sad sense of repulse and humiliation.  Before they had been together long, it was she who wore the hang-dog air—­for some unconscionable reason she felt in the wrong, and found herself asking her sister polite, nervous questions about the journey.

This attitude prevailed throughout the evening—­on the drive home, and at the excellent supper they sat down to:  a stuffed capon and a bottle of wine, truly a genteel feast of reconciliation—­but Joanna had grown more aristocratic in her feeding since she bought Great Ansdore.  Ellen spoke about her journey—­she had had a smooth crossing, but had felt rather ill in the train.  It was a long way from Venice—­yes, you came through France, and Switzerland too ... the St. Gothard tunnel ... twenty minutes—­well, I never?...  Yes, a bit smoky—­you had to keep the windows shut ... she preferred French to Italian cooking—­she did not like all that oil ... oh yes, foreigners were very polite when they knew you, but not to strangers ... just the opposite from England, where people were polite to strangers and rude to their friends.  Joanna had never spoken or heard so many generalities in her life.

At the end of supper she felt quite tired, what with saying one thing with her tongue and another in her heart.  Sometimes she felt that she must say something to break down this unreality, which was between them like a wall of ice—­at other times she felt angry, and it was Ellen she wanted to break down, to force out of her superior refuge, and show up to her own self as just a common sinner receiving common forgiveness.  But there was something about Ellen which made this impossible—­something about her manner, with its cold poise, something about her face, which had indefinitely changed—­it looked paler, wider, and there were secrets at the corners of her mouth.

This was not the first time that Joanna had seen her sister calm and collected while she herself was flustered—­but this evening a sense of her own awkwardness helped to put her at a still greater disadvantage.  She found herself making inane remarks, hesitating and stuttering—­she grew sulky and silent, and at last suggested that Ellen would like to go to bed.