Pointed Roofs

and knew that she was very tired, sleepy and tired. She glanced, from her place next to Emma Bergmann and on Fräulein’s left hand, down the table to where Mademoiselle sat next the Martins in similar relation to the vice-president. Mademoiselle, preceding her up through the quiet house carrying the jugs of hot water, had been her first impression on her arrival the previous night. She had turned when they reached the candle-lit attic with its high uncurtained windows and red-covered box beds, and standing on the one strip of matting in her full-skirted grey wincey dress with its neat triple row of black ribbon velvet near the hem, had shown Miriam steel-blue eyes smiling from a little triangular spritelike face under a high-standing pouf of soft dark hair, and said, “Voilà!” Miriam had never imagined anything in the least like her. She had said, “Oh, thank you,” and taken the jug and had hurriedly and silently got to bed, weighed down by wonders. They had begun to talk in the dark. Miriam had reaped sweet comfort in learning that this seemingly unreal creature who was, she soon perceived, not educated⁠—as she understood education⁠—was the resident French governess, was seventeen years old and a Protestant. Such close quarters with a French girl was bewildering enough⁠—had she been a Roman Catholic, Miriam felt she could not have endured her proximity. She was evidently a special kind of French girl⁠—a Protestant from East France⁠—Besançon⁠—Besançon⁠—Miriam had tried the pretty word over until unexpectedly she had fallen asleep.

They had risen hurriedly in the cold March gloom and Miriam had not spoken to her since. There she sat, dainty and quiet and fresh. White frillings shone now at the neck and sleeves of her little grey dress. She looked a clean and clear miniature against the general dauby effect of the English girls⁠—poor though, Miriam was sure; perhaps as poor as she. She felt glad as she watched her gentle spritelike wistfulness that she would be upstairs in that great bare attic again tonight. In repose her face looked pinched. There was something about the nose and mouth⁠—Miriam mused⁠ ⁠… frugal⁠—John Gilpin’s wife⁠—how sleepy she was.

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The conversation was growing boisterous. She took courage to raise her head towards the range of girls opposite to her. Those quite near to her she could not scrutinise. Some influence coming to her from these German girls prevented her risking with them any meeting of the eyes that was not brought about by direct speech. But she felt them. She felt Emma Bergmann’s warm plump presence close at her side and liked to take food handed by her. She was conscious of the pink bulb of Minna Blum’s nose shining just opposite to her, and of the way the light caught the blond sheen of her exquisitely coiled hair as she turned her always smiling face and responded to the louder remarks with, “Oh, thou dear God!” or “Is it possible!” “How charming, charming,” or “What in life dost thou say, rascal!”

Next to her was the faint glare of Elsa Speier’s silent sallowness. Her clear-threaded nimbus of pallid hair was the lowest point in the range of figures across the table. She darted quick glances at one and another without moving her head, and Miriam felt that her pale eyes fully met would be cunning and malicious.

After Elsa the “English” began with Judy. Miriam guessed when she heard her ask for Brötchen that she was Scotch. She sat slightly askew and ate eagerly, stooping over her plate with smiling mouth and downcast heavily-freckled face. Unless spoken to she did not speak, but she laughed often, a harsh involuntary laugh immediately followed by a drowning flush. When she was not flushed her eyelashes shone bright black against the unstained white above her cheekbones. She had coarse fuzzy red-brown hair.

Miriam decided that she was negligible.

Next to Judy were the Martins. They were as English as they could be. She felt she must have noticed them a good deal at breakfast and dinnertime without knowing it. Her eyes after one glance at the claret-coloured merino dresses with hard white collars and cuffs, came back to her plate as from a familiar picture. She still saw them sitting very upright, side by side, with the front strands of their hair strained smoothly back, tied just on the crest of the head with brown ribbon and going down in “rats’-tails” to join the rest of their hair which hung straight and flat halfway down their backs. The elder was dark with thick shoulders and heavy features. Her large expressionless rich brown eyes flashed slowly and reflected the light. They gave Miriam a slight feeling of nausea. She felt she knew what her hands were like without looking at them. The younger was thin and pale and slightly hollow-cheeked. She had pale eyes, cold, like a fish, thought Miriam. They both had deep hollow voices.

When she glanced again they were watching the Australian with their four strange eyes and laughing German phrases at her, “Go on, Gertrude!” “Are you sure, Gertrude?” “How do you know, Gertrude!”

Miriam had not yet dared to glance in the direction of the Australian. Her eyes at dinnertime had cut like sharp steel. Turning, however, towards the danger zone, without risking the coming of its presiding genius within the focus of her glasses she caught a glimpse of “Jimmie” sitting back in her chair tall and plump and neat, and shaking with wide-mouthed giggles. Miriam wondered at the high neat peak of hair on the top of her head and stared at her pearly little teeth. There was something funny about her mouth. Even when she strained it wide it was narrow and tiny⁠—rabbity. She raised a short arm and began patting her peak of hair with a tiny hand which showed a small onyx seal ring on the little finger. “Ask Judy!” she