Then with the greenish dawn, that the blinds let into the room, came some refreshment and new health to the brain, but the trend of her ideas was not modified.  She lay on her side and watched the unconscious Louis for immense periods, and occasionally tears filled her eyes.  The changes in her existence seemed so swift and so tremendous as to transcend belief.  Was it conceivable that only twelve hours earlier she had been ecstatically happy?  In twelve hours—­in six hours—­she had aged twenty years, and she now saw the Rachel of the reception and of the bicycle lesson as a young girl, touchingly ingenuous, with no more notion of danger than a baby.

At six o’clock she arose.  Already she had formed the habit of arising before Louis, and had reconciled herself to the fact that Louis had to be forced out of bed.  Happily, his feet once on the floor, he became immediately manageable.  Already she was the conscience and time-keeper of the house.  She could dress herself noiselessly; in a week she had perfected all her little devices for avoiding noise and saving time.  She finally left the room neat, prim, with lips set to a thousand responsibilities.  She had a peculiar sensation of tight elastic about her eyes, but she felt no fatigue, and she did not yawn.  Mrs. Tams, who had just descended, found her taciturn and exacting.  She would have every household task performed precisely in her own way, without compromise.  And it appeared that the house, which had the air of being in perfect order, was not in order at all, that indeed the processes of organization had, in young Mrs. Fores’ opinion, scarcely yet begun.  It appeared that there was no smallest part or corner of the house as to which young Mrs. Fores had not got very definite ideas and plans.  The individuality of Mrs. Tams was to have scope nowhere.  But after all, this seemed quite natural to Mrs. Tams.

When Rachel went back to the bedroom, about 7.30, to get Louis by ruthlessness and guile out of bed, she was surprised to discover that he had already gone up to the bathroom.  She guessed, with vague alarm, from this symptom that he had a new and very powerful interest in life.  He came to breakfast at three minutes to eight, three minutes before it was served.  When she entered the parlour in the wake of Mrs. Tams he kissed her with gay fervour.  She permitted herself to be kissed.  Her unresponsiveness, though not marked, disconcerted him and somewhat dashed his mood.  Whereupon Rachel, by the reassurance of her voice, set about to convince him that he had been mistaken in deeming her unresponsive.  So that he wavered between two moods.

As she sat behind the tray, amid the exquisite odours of fresh coffee and Ted Malkin’s bacon (for she had forgiven Miss Malkin), behaving like a staid wife of old standing, she well knew that she was a mystery for Louis.  She was the source of his physical comfort, the origin of the celestial change in his life which had caused him to admit fully that to live in digs was “a rotten game”; but she was also, that morning, a most sinister mystery.  Her behaviour was faultless.  He could seize on no definite detail that should properly disturb him; only she had woven a veil between herself and him.  Still, his liveliness scarcely abated.