The hour before supper-time seemed interminable; the quarter passed, then the half, then the three-quarters.  Lloyd imagined she began to detect a faint odour of the kitchen in the air.  Suddenly the remaining minutes of the hour began to be stricken from the dial of her clock with bewildering rapidity.  From the drawing-room immediately below came the sounds of the piano.  That was Esther Thielman, no doubt, playing one of her interminable Polish compositions.  All at once the piano stopped, and, with a quick sinking of the heart, Lloyd heard the sliding doors separating the drawing-room from the dining-room roll back.  Miss Douglass and another one of the nurses, Miss Truslow, a young girl, a newcomer in the house, came out of the former’s room and went downstairs, discussing the merits of burlap as preferable to wall-paper.  Lloyd even heard Miss Truslow remark: 

“Yes, that’s very true, but if it isn’t sized it will wrinkle in damp weather.”

Rownie came to Lloyd’s door and knocked, and, without waiting for a reply, said: 

“Dinneh’s served, Miss Searight,” and Lloyd heard her make the same announcement at Miss Bergyn’s room farther down the hall.  One by one Lloyd heard the others go downstairs.  The rooms and hallways on the second floor fell quiet.  A faint, subdued murmur of talk came to her ears in the direction of the dining-room.  Lloyd waited for five, for ten, for fifteen minutes.  Then she rose, drawing in her breath, straightening herself to her full height.  She went to the door, then paused for a moment, looking back at all the familiar objects—­the plain, rich furniture, the book-shelves, the great, comfortable couch, the old-fashioned round mirror that hung between the windows, and her writing-desk of blackened mahogany.  It seemed to her that in some way she was never to see these things again, as if she were saying good-bye to them and to the life she had led in that room and in their surroundings.  She would be a different woman when she came back to that room.  Slowly she descended the stairs and halted for a moment in the hall below.  It was not too late to turn back even now.  She could hear her companions at their supper very plainly, and could distinguish Esther Thielman’s laugh as she exclaimed: 

“Why, of course, that’s the very thing I mean.”

It was a strange surprise that Lloyd had in store for them all.  Her heart began to beat heavy and thick.  Could she even find her voice to speak when the time came?  Would it not be better to put it off, to think over the whole matter again between now and to-morrow morning?  But she moved her head impatiently.  No, she would not turn back.  She found that the sliding doors in the drawing-room had been closed, and so went to the door that opened into the dining-room from the hall itself.  It stood ajar.  Lloyd pushed it open, entered, and, closing the door behind her, stood there leaning against it.