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T was six o'clock, the dusky sky was streaked with gold behind the beech-trees and the bells were already beginning; they had sat like this since tea. Mrs.Roche had turned half-round to watch the sunset, her hands were clasped along the back of her chair and her chin rested on her interwoven fingers. She blinked a little in the level light, and all the little lines were visible about her eyes and round her puckered mouth. Laura May and Mrs. McKenna sat on the low window seat, faintly aureoled, their empty cups beside them on the floor. Archie Manning was somewhere on the sofa, away among the shadows of the room, leaning back with his legs so twisted that his big feet stuck grotesquely out into the light. They had almost forgotten his existence, and his masculinity did not obtrude itself upon the conversation.

Cups and silver held the last of the sunlight, the tall room gradually obscured itself; here and there a frame or mirror gleamed on the shadowed walls.