That was a little later.  At first there was the transformation to lament, the loss, the break.

“You look,” cried Miss Livingstone, the first time Hilda arrived in the dress of the novice, a kind of under-study of the Sisters’ black and white, “you look like a person in a book, full of salient points, and yet made so simple to the reader.  If you go on wearing those things I shall end by understanding you perfectly.”

“If you don’t understand me,” Hilda said, dropping into the corner of a sofa, “Cela que je m’en doute, it’s because you look for too much elaboration.  I am a simple creature, done with rather a broad brush—­voila tout!”

Nevertheless, Miss Livingstone’s was a happy impression.  The neutrality of her hospital dress left Hilda in a manner exposed:  one saw in a special way the significance of lines and curves; it was an astonishingly vigorous human expression.

Alicia leaned forward, her elbow on the arm of her chair, her chin tucked into her palm, and looked at it.  The elbow bent itself in light blue muslin of extreme elegance, trimmed with lace.  The colour found a wistful echo in the eyes that regarded Miss Howe, who was accustomed to the look, and met it with impenetrable commonplace, being made impatient by nothing in this world so much as by futility, however charming.

“Just now,” Alicia said, “the shadows under your eyes are brushed too deep.”

“I don’t believe I sleep well in a dormitory.”

“Horrible!  All the little comforts of life—­don’t you miss them?”

“I never had them, my dear—­I never had them.  Life has never given me very many luxuries—­I don’t miss them.  An occasional hour to one’s self—­and that we get even at the Institution.  The conventions are strictly conserved, believe me.”

“One imagines that kind of place is always clean.”

“When I have time I think of Number Three, Lal Behari’s Lane, and believe myself in Paradise.  The repose is there, the angels also—­ dear commanding things—­and a perpetual incense of cheap soap.  And there is some good in sleeping in a row.  It reminds one that after all one is very like other women.”

“It wouldn’t convince me if I were you.  And how did the sisters receive you—­with the harp and the psaltery?”

“That was rather,” said Hilda gravely, “what I expected.  On the contrary.  They snubbed me—­they really did.  There were two of them.  I said, ’Reverend ladies, please be a little kind.  Convents are strange to me; I shall probably commit horrible sins without knowing it.  Give me your absolution in advance—­at least your blessing.’”

“Hilda, you didn’t!”

“It is delightful to observe the Mother Abbess, or whatever she is, disguising the fact that she takes any interest in me.  Such diplomacy—­funny old thing.”

“They must be devoured with curiosity!”

“Well, they ask no questions.  One sees an everlasting finger on the lip.  It’s a little boring.  One feels inclined to speak up and say, ‘Mesdames, entendez—­it isn’t so bad as you think.’  But then their fingers would go into their ears.”