When he was gone, and she could do as she liked, she sat stiller than ever, knowing by long experience that to indulge oneself in private only made it more difficult not to indulge oneself in public.  It really was provoking that this nice new clasp should go wrong just this once, and that the first time it was used!  And she took from her pocket a tiny prayer-book, and, holding it to the light, read the eighteenth psalm—­it was a particularly good one, that never failed her when she felt low—­she used no glasses, and up to the present had avoided any line between the brows, knowing it was her duty to remain as nice as she could to look at, so as not to spoil the pleasure of people round about her.  Then saying to herself firmly, “I do not, I will not want any tea—­but I shall be glad of dinner!” she rose and opened her cane trunk.  Though she knew exactly where they were, she was some time finding the pincers, because there were so many interesting things above them, each raising a different train of thought.  A pair of field-glasses, the very latest—­the man had said—­for darling Derek; they would be so useful to keep his mind from thinking about things that it was no good thinking about.  And for dear Flora (how wonderful that she could write poetry—­poetry!) a really splendid, and perfectly new, little pill.  She herself had already taken two, and they had suited her to perfection.  For darling Felix a new kind of eau de cologne, made in Worcester, because that was the only scent he would use.  For her pet Nedda, a piece of ‘point de Venise’ that she really could not be selfish enough to keep any longer, especially as she was particularly fond of it.  For Alan, a new kind of tin-opener that the dear boy would like enormously; he was so nice and practical.  For Sheila, such a nice new novel by Mr. and Mrs. Whirlingham—­a bright, wholesome tale, with such a good description of quite a new country in it—­the dear child was so clever, it would be a change for her.  Then, actually resting on the pincers, she came on her pass-book, recently made up, containing little or no balance, just enough to get darling John that bag like hers with the new clasp, which would be so handy for his papers when he went travelling.  And having reached the pincers, she took them in her hand, and sat down again to be quite quiet a moment, with her still-dark eyelashes resting on her ivory cheeks and her lips pressed to a colorless line; for her head swam from stooping over.  In repose, with three flies circling above her fine gray hair, she might have served a sculptor for a study of the stoic spirit.  Then, going to the bag, her compressed lips twitching, her gray eyes piercing into its clasp with a kind of distrustful optimism, she lifted the pincers and tweaked it hard.