As always, the suspicion that she was in the presence of somebody who had the singular bad luck to be unhappy changed Ellen on the instant to something soft as a kitten, incapable of resentment as an angel.  “Well, I’ve got a habit of saying the things that will be found unpleasant,” she said hopefully, in tones tremulous with kindness.  “I’m just as likely to say something that’ll rouse a person’s dander as you are to say something that’ll quiet it down.  We ought to be awful good for one another.”

Mrs. Yaverland turned on Ellen a glance which recognised her quality as queer and precious, yet was not endearing and helped her nothing in the girl’s heart.  For she was considering Ellen for what she would give Richard, what she would bring to satisfy that craving for living beauty which was so avid in him and because of his fastidiousness and his unwilling loyalty to the soul so unsatisfied.  She wondered too whether Ellen could lighten those of his days which were sunless with doubt.  And for that reason her appreciation brought her no nearer the girl than a courtier comes to the jewel he thinks fair enough to purchase as a present to his king.  She became aware of the obstinate duration of their distance, and, trying to buy intimacy with honesty, because that was for her the highest price that could be paid, she said in the same forced voice, “You know, you’re ever so much better than I thought you’d be.”

“Am I now?  What way?” Like all young people, she loved to talk about herself.  “My looks, do you mean?  Now, I was sure Richard was funning me when he told me I was nice.  He talks so much of my hair that I was afraid he thought little of the rest of me.  I’m sure he told you that I’m plain.  And I am.  Am I not?”

“No, you’re beautiful.  I expected you to be beautiful.”  There was a hint of coldness in her voice, as if she disliked the implication that her son might be lacking in taste.  “It’s the other things I’m surprised at:  that you’re clever, that you’re reflective, that you feel deeply.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Ellen, confidentially, leaning across the table, “since we’re being honest, I don’t mind saying that I think you’re not over-stating it.  But how do you know all that?  I’m sure I’ve been most petty and disagreeable ever since I arrived.  I’ve just been hoping it’s not the climate that’s doing it, for that’d be hard on Richard and you.”

The other woman became almost confused.  “Oh, that was me!  That was me!” she said earnestly.  “I told you I was evasive.  One form it takes is that when I meet people I’m very much interested in, I can’t show my interest directly; I take cover behind a pretence of abstraction.  I polish my nails and do silly things like that, and people think I’m cold, and stupid about the particular point they want me to see, and they try to attract my attention by behaving wildly, and that usually means behaving badly.  It was my fault, it was my fault!”