glazed, with shutters of plain green wood outside, and inside a muslin
blind. Eleanor approached it.

Through the chink of the door she saw Lucy plainly. The girl had been
sitting almost with her back to the door, but she had turned so that her
profile and hands were visible.

How quiet she was! Yet never was there an attitude more eloquent. She held
in her hands, which lay upon her knee, one of the little terra-cottas.
Eleanor could see it perfectly. It was the head of a statuette, not unlike
her own which she had destroyed,--a smaller and ruder Artemis with the
Cybele crown. There flashed into her mind the memory of Manisty explaining
it to the girl, sitting on the bench behind the strawberry hut; his black
brows bent in the eagerness of his talk; her sweet eyes, her pure pleasure.

And now Lucy had no companion--but thought. Her face was raised, the eyes
were shut, the beautiful mouth quivered in the effort to be still. She was
mistress of herself, yet not for the moment wholly mistress of longing and
of sorrow. A quick struggle passed over the face. There was another slight
sob. Then Eleanor saw her raise the terra-cotta, bow her face upon it,
press it long and lingeringly to her lips. It was like a gesture of eternal
farewell; the gesture of a child expressing the heart of a woman.

Eleanor tottered back. She sat on the edge of her bed, motionless in the
darkness, till the sounds of Cecco bringing up the _pranzo_ in the corridor
outside warned her that her time of solitude was over.

* * * * *

In the evening Eleanor was sitting in the Sassetto. Lucy with her young