She thought Verity looked quite beautiful as she spoke; perhaps the costume of a Roman peasant suited her, but Anna, who was standing quite close to her, noticed the wonderful softness of the brown eyes and the length of the curling lashes.

Babs had grown drowsy at last, and Verity had placed her in the cot.

Then they all sat down for a brief chat before it was time for Malcolm to take Anna home.
They had been talking about Amias Keston's unfinished picture, and, as usual, Malcolm had been holding forth in his role of art critic, when one of those sudden pauses which seem to drop softly between intimate friends followed his concluding speech.

Verity held up her finger with the hackneyed allusion to a passing angel, at which Malcolm laughed scornfully.
"You are too poetical, my dear Verity," he observed; "it was no white-robed celestial vision brushing past us in the twilight and fanning us with plumed and balmy wings; the gliding shadow that moved between us was merely the guardian genius who presides over my destiny.
But as he passed I touched his mantle"-- and here Malcolm regarded his audience with infinite meaning.
No one hazarded an observation.

Amias, who had been filling his pipe with tobacco, looked at it longingly and returned it to his pocket.
This process he repeated at intervals from sheer force of habit.