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Dolores obviously hadn’t breakfasted; Martha therefore, and it must be admitted chiefly out of self-regardfulness, made a nice cup of tea and carried it upstairs.
    The door stood ajar; she padded in—and almost, because the curtains were still pulled, back into pre-dawn. The light had also an odd watery quality; Martha couldn’t help pausing a moment to observe Dolores’ bedroom transformed into a marine landscape. The big double divan loomed like a low rock, still half-awash under the tides of night: beyond, between the windows, the dressing-table rose baroque and pinnacled as the pavilion-end of a pier.—But the tea was cooling; Martha paddled on in, kicking aside a shawl as she might have kicked aside a jelly-fish, and gained the bed-side table as she might have gained a buoy.
    Dolores lay very flat—as though drowned. Beneath the coverlet her narrow shape thrust up only two small peaks of feet. Even her head was down flat, the pillow at some point in her sleep having been thrust away. She was in fact sound asleep still; but Martha wasn’t going to waste pains.
    â€œWake up!” said Martha loudly.
    Miss Diver stirred; reached out a groping hand, uttered a little unhappy cry, and slept again. There was nothing for it but to shake her, and Martha had no hesitation in doing so.
    â€œWake up!” repeated Martha impatiently. “I’ve brought you a nice cup of tea!”
    With interest, but without surprise, she saw the cantrip work. Miss Diver opened her eyes and lifted herself a little. (Also, in the same movement, pulled the quilt higher—because she was fully dressed. So paradoxically do the conventions operate.)
    â€œYou’ve brought me a cup of tea?” repeated Miss Diver, wonderingly.
    â€œTo cheer you up,” explained Martha. “I’m sorry I’ve eaten everything else, but if you’d like some bread and jam I could get you that too …”
    By this incident was the immediate pattern of their lives decided. For all her brave words to Mr Gibson, Miss Diver had reserved somewhere at the back of her mind the linked images of Martha and a nice orphanage. Miss Diver, with her closer experience, wasn’t nearly so certain as Mr Gibson that Martha was going to be a comfort. They got on together very well, but never once in three years had a childish hand slipped confidingly into her own, nor a childish kiss spontaneously rewarded her care. In fact, had Miss Diver ever been able to pierce the clouds of self-induced romanticism, she’d have described her niece Martha as perfectly heartless. Before the chilling wind of Mr Gibson’s dreadful news, those clouds momentarily parted. Miss Diver’s unconscious mind, while she slept, had consolidated a new image of Martha altogether, and one almost unfairly realistic. Waking alone, Miss Diver would certainly have reexamined the advantages, to both of them, of a nice orphanage …
    Now Martha brought her a cup of tea—to cheer her up. What more could a child of nine do? The clouds re-formed instantaneously. Swallowing tea and tears together, Miss Diver smiled gratefully at the kind little soul beside her bed.
    â€œYou’re my little comfort,” affirmed Miss Diver.
    Martha, again pleased to see the cantrip work, was far from realising what made it so efficacious. That very afternoon, however, Miss Diver set out in search of some employment that would support them both.
    4
    Mr Gibson’s place of business was in Kensington; a very nice premises, taken when his father so rashly decided to launch out. It was over a high-class tailor’s: there was a spacious show-room, with two private fitting-cabinets, a good work-room above, and a handsomely furnished office. The plate by the entrance still announced Gibson and Son: Mr Gibson glanced at it without piety.
    In the show-room Miss Molyneux, vendeuse and model, and Miss Harris, who fitted, were as usual discussing the private lives