After the confusion of her twilight walk, and her random thoughts, life in this small room appeared extremely concentrated and bright.

She turned instinctively to look out of the window, which was uncurtained, but Mary immediately recalled her.
"It was very clever of you to find your way," she said, and Katharine wondered, as she stood there, feeling, for the moment, entirely detached and unabsorbed, why she had come.

She looked, indeed, to Mary's eyes strangely out of place in the office.

Her figure in the long cloak, which took deep folds, and her face, which was composed into a mask of sensitive apprehension, disturbed Mary for a moment with a sense of the presence of some one who was of another world, and, therefore, subversive of her world.

She became immediately anxious that Katharine should be impressed by the importance of her world, and hoped that neither Mrs.Seal nor Mr.Clacton would appear until the impression of importance had been received.