close to Birkin, and pointing to the red filaments with her long, white
finger.

'Had you never noticed them before?' he asked.

'No, never before,' she replied.

'And now you will always see them,' he said.

'Now I shall always see them,' she repeated. 'Thank you so much for
showing me. I think they're so beautiful--little red flames--'

Her absorption was strange, almost rhapsodic. Both Birkin and Ursula
were suspended. The little red pistillate flowers had some strange,
almost mystic-passionate attraction for her.

The lesson was finished, the books were put away, at last the class was
dismissed. And still Hermione sat at the table, with her chin in her
hand, her elbow on the table, her long white face pushed up, not
attending to anything. Birkin had gone to the window, and was looking
from the brilliantly-lighted room on to the grey, colourless outside,
where rain was noiselessly falling. Ursula put away her things in the
cupboard.

At length Hermione rose and came near to her.

'Your sister has come home?' she said.

'Yes,' said Ursula.