Mrs. Fisher had gone to the drawing-room and the fire.  Scrap and Lotty, their faces upturned to the sky, said very little and in whispers.  Rose said nothing.  Her face too was upturned.  She was looking at the umbrella pine, which had been smitten into something glorious, silhouetted against stars.  Every now and then Scrap’s eyes lingered on Rose; so did Lotty’s.  For Rose was lovely.  Anywhere at that moment, among all the well-known beauties, she would have been lovely.  Nobody could have put her in the shade, blown out her light that evening; she was too evidently shining.

Lotty bent close to Scrap’s ear, and whispered.  “Love,” she whispered.

Scrap nodded.  “Yes,” she said, under her breath.

She was obliged to admit it.  You only had to look at Rose to know that here was Love.

“There’s nothing like it,” whispered Lotty.

Scrap was silent.

“It’s a great thing,” whispered Lotty after a pause, during which they both watched Rose’s upturned face, “to get on with one’s loving.  Perhaps you can tell me of anything else in the world that works such wonders.”

But Scrap couldn’t tell her; and if she could have, what a night to begin arguing in.  This was a night for—­

She pulled herself up.  Love again.  It was everywhere.  There was no getting away from it.  She had come to this place to get away from it, and here was everybody in its different stages.  Even Mrs. Fisher seemed to have been brushed by one of the many feathers of Love’s wing, and at dinner was different—­full of concern because Mr. Briggs wouldn’t eat, and her face when she turned to him all soft with motherliness.

Scrap looked up at the pine-tree motionless among starts.  Beauty made you love, and love made you beautiful. . .

She pulled her wrap closer round her with a gesture of defence, of keeping out and off.  She didn’t want to grow sentimental.  Difficult not to, here; the marvelous night stole in through all one’s chinks, and brought in with it, whether one wanted them or not, enormous feelings—­feelings one couldn’t manage, great things about death and time and waste; glorious and devastating things, magnificent and bleak, at once rapture and terror and immense, heart-cleaving longing.  She felt small and dreadfully alone.  She felt uncovered and defenceless.  Instinctively she pulled her wrap closer.  With this thing of chiffon she tired to protect herself from the eternities.

“I suppose,” whispered Lotty, “Rose’s husband seems to you just an ordinary, good-natured, middle-aged man.”

Scrap brought her gaze down from the stars and looked at Lotty a moment while she focused her mind again.

“Just a rather red, rather round man,” whispered Lotty.

Scrap bowed her head.

“He isn’t,” whispered Lotty.  “Rose sees through all that.  That’s mere trimmings.  She sees what we can’t see, because she loves him.”