Hewet and Hirst appeared at the drawing-room window and came up to the tea-table.
Rachel's heart beat hard.

She was conscious of an extraordinary intensity in everything, as though their presence stripped some cover off the surface of things; but the greetings were remarkably commonplace.
"Excuse me," said Hirst, rising from his chair directly he had sat down.
He went into the drawing-room, and returned with a cushion which he placed carefully upon his seat.
"Rheumatism," he remarked, as he sat down for the second time.
"The result of the dance ?" Helen enquired.
"Whenever I get at all run down I tend to be rheumatic," Hirst stated.
He bent his wrist back sharply.

"I hear little pieces of chalk grinding together!" Rachel looked at him.

She was amused, and yet she was respectful; if such a thing could be, the upper part of her face seemed to laugh, and the lower part to check its laughter.
Hewet picked up the book that lay on the ground.
"You like this ?" he asked in an undertone.
"No, I don't like it," she replied.

She had indeed been trying all the afternoon to read it, and for some reason the glory which she had perceived at first had faded, and, read as she would, she could not grasp the meaning with her mind.
"It goes round, round, round, like a roll of oil-cloth," she hazarded.
Evidently she meant Hewet alone to hear her words, but Hirst demanded, "What d'you mean ?" She was instantly ashamed of her figure of speech, for she could not explain it in words of sober criticism.
"Surely it's the most perfect style, so far as style goes, that's ever been invented," he continued.