Against the curtains of gold silk there was the bough of twisted pine he had broken, and against the pine branch stood the figure of Corinna in her gown of soft red, which melted like a spray of autumn foliage into the colours of the room.

She was a tall woman, with a glorious head and eyes that reminded Stephen of a forest pool in autumn.

Who had first said of her, he wondered, that she looked like an October morning?
As he approached the shop the glow shone out on him through the dull gold curtains, and he traced the crooked pine bough sweeping across the thin silk background like the bold free sketch of a Japanese print.

When he rang the bell a minute later, the door was opened by Corinna, who was holding a basket of marigolds.
"We were just going," she said, "as soon as I had put these flowers in water." She drew back into the room, bending over the low brown bowl that she was filling, while Stephen went over to the fire, and greeted the two old men who were sitting in deep arm chairs on either side of the hearth.

It was like stepping into another world, he thought, as he inhaled a full breath of the warmth and the fragrance of roses; it was as if a door into a dream had suddenly opened, and he had passed out of the night and the cold into a place where all was colour and fragrance and pleasant magic.