Rachel was lying on the hearth-rug, one arm stretched nonchalantly over the fender and the hand close to the fire.  Her face was whiter than any face he had ever seen, living or dead.  He shook; the inanimate figure with the disarranged clothes and hair, prone and deserted there in the solitude of the warm, familiar room, struck terror into him.  He bent down; he knelt down and drew the arm away from the fire.  He knew not in the least what was the proper thing to do; and naturally the first impulse of his ignorance was to raise her body from the ground.  But she was so heavy, so appallingly inert, that, fortunately, he could not do so, and he let her head subside again.

Then he remembered that the proper thing to do in these cases was to loosen the clothes round the neck; but he could not loosen her bodice because it was fastened behind and the hooks were so difficult.  He jumped to the window and opened it.  The blind curved inward like a sail under the cold entering breeze.  When he returned to Rachel he thought he noticed the faintest pinky flush in her cheeks.  And suddenly she gave a deep sigh.  He knelt again.  There was something about the line of her waist that, without any warning, seemed to him ineffably tender, wistful, girlish, seductive.  Her whole figure began to exert the same charm over him.  Even her frock, which nevertheless was not even her second best, took on a quality that in its simplicity bewitched him.  He recalled her wonderful gesture as she lighted his cigarette on the night when he first saw her in her kitchen; and his memory of it thrilled him....  Rachel opened her eyes and sighed deeply once more.  He fanned her with a handkerchief drawn from his sleeve.

“Louis!” she murmured in a tired baby’s voice, after a few moments.

He thought:  “It’s a good thing I didn’t go out, and I’m glad Mrs. Tarns isn’t here blundering about.”

“You’re better?” he said mildly.

She raised her arms and clasped him, dragging him to her with a force that was amazing under the circumstances.  They kissed; their faces were merged for a long time.  Then she pushed him a little away, and, guarding his shoulders with her hands, examined his face, and smiled pathetically.

“Call me Louise,” she whispered.

“Silly little thing!  Shall I get you some water?”

“Call me Louise!”

“Louise!”

CHAPTER XIX

RACHEL AND MR. HORROCLEAVE

I

The next morning, Sunday, Rachel had a fancy to superintend in person the boiling of Louis’ breakfast egg.  For a week past Louis had not been having his usual breakfast, but on this morning the ideal life was recommencing in loveliest perfection for Rachel.  The usual breakfast was to be resumed; and she remembered that in the past the sacred egg had seldom, if ever, been done to a turn by Mrs. Tams.  Mrs. Tams, indeed, could not divide a minute into halves, and was apt to regard a preference for a certain consistency in a boiled egg as merely finicking and negligible.  To Mrs. Tams a fresh egg was a fresh egg, and there was no more to be said.