and Marion's hair without its lustre, but she was thin and careworn.
The aunt, Miss Ramboat, was a large, abnormally shy person very like her
brother, and I don't recall anything she said on this occasion.

To begin with there was a good deal of tension, Marion was frightfully
nervous and every one was under the necessity of behaving in a
mysteriously unreal fashion until I plunged, became talkative and made
a certain ease and interest. I told them of the schools, of my lodgings,
of Wimblehurst and my apprenticeship days. "There's a lot of this
Science about nowadays," Mr. Ramboat reflected; "but I sometimes wonder
a bit what good it is?"

I was young enough to be led into what he called "a bit of a
discussion," which Marion truncated before our voices became unduly
raised. "I dare say," she said, "there's much to be said on both sides."

I remember Marion's mother asked me what church I attended, and that
I replied evasively. After tea there was music and we sang hymns. I
doubted if I had a voice when this was proposed, but that was held to be
a trivial objection, and I found sitting close beside the sweep of
hair from Marion's brow had many compensations. I discovered her mother
sitting in the horsehair armchair and regarding us sentimentally. I went
for a walk with Marion towards Putney Bridge, and then there was more
singing and a supper of cold bacon and pie, after which Mr. Ramboat and
I smoked. During that walk, I remember, she told me the import of her
sketchings and copyings in the museum. A cousin of a friend of hers whom
she spoke of as Smithie, had developed an original business in a sort of
tea-gown garment which she called a Persian Robe, a plain sort of wrap
with a gaily embroidered yoke, and Marion went there and worked in the
busy times. In the times that weren't busy she designed novelties in