For all their hostility they could not withstand the feeling that she would think them terrible young prigs if they simply bowed.

And they looked steadily at one with whom they had never before been at quite such close quarters.

Lady Malloring, who had originally been the Honorable Mildred Killory, a daughter of Viscount Silport, was tall, slender, and not very striking, with very fair hair going rather gray; her expression in repose was pleasant, a little anxious; only by her eyes was the suspicion awakened that she was a woman of some character.

They had that peculiar look of belonging to two worlds, so often to be met with in English eyes, a look of self-denying aspiration, tinctured with the suggestion that denial might not be confined to self.
In a quite friendly voice she said: "Can I do anything for you ?" And while she waited for an answer her glance travelled from face to face of the two young people, with a certain curiosity.

After a silence of several seconds, Sheila answered: "Not for us, thank you; for others, you can." Lady Malloring's eyebrows rose a little, as if there seemed to her something rather unjust in those words--'for others.' "Yes ?" she said.
Sheila, whose hands were clenched, and whose face had been fiery red, grew suddenly almost white.
"Lady Malloring, will you please let the Gaunts stay in their cottage and Tryst's wife's sister come to live with the children and him ?" Lady Malloring raised one hand; the motion, quite involuntary, ended at the tiny cross on her breast.