II
THE Val d'Iliez seemed to Teresa a cool heaven, as they came to it after a trying journey. The quiet of that cleft in the brilliantly green hills, all one flowery meadow, with the misty wastes of rock and snow above, promised her at last the chance to rest and find herself. For this solitude was necessary. She could not help it if Nina found her rather unsocial, after so many years of separation, and resented her long walks alone.
Many hours of solitude each day she must have. Besides, Ronald wanted her. He was a shy child and did not make friends easily with his noisy Italian cousins. He was generally with her when she worked—for she had brought some clay with her and had begun with it immediately on her arrival, doing some little groups from drawings she had made long ago, and often using Ronald as a model for the child-figures she liked. Nina was busy all day long, organising her household and wresting supplies from the reluctant Swiss peasantry; finding out just where real milk and cream were to be got; telephoning for chickens to come by post; stemming the discontent of the servants; laying out a
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