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gardens. This last one was the rose garden, a triangular strip ending in an
avenue of mulberries which led towards the farthest tapering point of Demoyte’s
estate. After that there were taller trees through which in winter were
revealed the red roofs of the housing estate, but which in summer enclosed the
horizon except where at one place their line was broken by the upwardly
pointing finger, just visible from the house, of the neo-Gothic tower of St
Bride’s.

The drawing-room was empty. Mor felt some relief. He fingered his tie again,
and sat down quietly in one of the chairs. He loved this room. In his own home,
although there were few ornaments, and such as there were were chosen carefully
by Nan to harmonize with the curtains, no part of it seemed to blend into a
unity. The objects remained separate, their shapes and their colours almost invisible.
Here, on the contrary, although the room was overcrowded and its contents
extremely miscellaneous, all seemed to come together into a whirl of red and
gold wherein each thing, though contributing to the whole, became more itself.
A rich Feraghan carpet covered the floor, almost entirely obscured by equally
splendid rugs which lay edge to edge over its surface. Pieces of furniture
stood about, without plan or pattern, their only obvious intention being to
provide as many smooth surfaces as possible upon which might be placed cups,
bowls, vases, boxes, together with a variety of smaller objects made of ivory,
jade, jet, glass, and amber. Petit-point cushions crowded so thick upon
most of the chairs that it was quite hard to find anywhere to sit down. The
walls were papered in a gold-and-white pattern, but were rarely visible between
the most splendid of the rugs which hung upon them, stretched at various angles
between the floor and the ceiling, and glowing there with silky vitality like
the skins of fabulous animals. Mor half closed his eyes and the forms about him
became hazier and more intense. He let the colours enter into him. He rested.

Then suddenly with a strange shock of alarm he realized that upon a table at
the far end of the room a very small woman was kneeling. He had not noticed her
as he came in, since the colours of her dress faded into the background, and he
had not expected to see her at that point in space. She had her back to him,
and seemed to be examining one of the rugs which hung on the wall behind the
table.

‘I’m so sorry!’ said Mor, jumping us.‘I didn’t see you!’

The young woman turned abruptly, tilted the table with her weight, tried to
spring off it, and then fell on the floor. Mor ran forward, but she had
recovered herself before he reached her.

‘You frightened me,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

They looked at each other. Mor saw a very short youthful-looking girl, with
boyishly cut dark hair, and darkly rosy cheeks, wearing a black cotton blouse,
an elaborately flowered red skirt, and a necklace of large red beads; and he
became for an instant acutely aware of what the girl was seeing: a tall
middle-aged schoolmaster, with a twisted face and the grey coming in his hair.

‘I am Rain Carter,’ said the girl.

‘I am William Mor,’ said Mor. ‘I’m so sorry I alarmed you.’

‘That’s quite all right,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I was just looking at this rug.
She spoke in a slightly prim way.

‘That’s one of Mr Demoyte’s treasures,’ said Mor. ‘I believe it’s a Shíráz.’ He
thought, how very small she is, and how like a child. Perhaps Evvy was right
after all. Her eyes were dark brown and fugitive, her nose rather broad and
tilted. A not unpleasant face.

It is a Shíráz,‘ said Miss Carter. ’Do you notice how mysteriously the colours
behave here? Each piece has its own shade, and then there is a sort of surface
colour which the whole rug has which is different, a sort of blush.‘ She spoke
with a pedantic solemnity that Mor found touching and absurd. He found himself
wondering if she