In a way the weather's enough, in itself, without anything else."

"That seems to me a remarkable, a very extra-ordinairy point of view.
You can't in any circumstances make it a general defence of your
climate. It's a purely personal notion."

"It isn't. Even people who say they don't like fogs are different;
interested in the effect while it is on."

"Uneasy, no doubt, like animals in a trap."

"I refer to Miss Henderson's extra-ordinairy valuation of weather as
enough in itself. I consider that is one of _the_ most _extra-ordinairy_
points of view I ever heard stated."

"No one can deny the quahl-ty of interest to the vagaries of your
western European climut; from our point of view it's all interest and no
climut; ye can't tell from day to day what season ye'll be in and they
all seem--stormy."

"The seasons crop up all the year round, sometimes three in one day.
That's just the fascinating thing."

"Quite so, we find that varry disturbing."

"Our sudden changes of temperature keep us hardy."

"That's true; you're a hardy people. Your weather suits you, beyond a
doubt."

"In _Ireland_, the weather changes every few minutes."

"Hah, Wayneflete."

"Granted. No doubt that assisted my parents to decide to leave; I don't
wonder at it."

"You're temperate. You've got the sea at a stone's throw all round. You
don't have notable extremes. But there's our trouble. Your extremes when
they come ain't arranged for. There's no heat like your English heat,
and my word your English houses in the winter'd take some beating."

"You mean boarding-houses."

"Not entirely. Though I admit your English hoames are unique in the
matter of comfort. There's nothing in the world like a real good
_English hoame_. And not only in the matter of comfort."

"Yes but look here von Heber. I know your fine English parlours with
fine great fires to sit around, what they call 'cosy' over here, but my
life why don't they warm their corridors and sleeping rooms?"

"We don't be_cause_ it's unhealthy. A cold bedroom keeps you hardy and
you _sleep_ better."

"And not only warm them but light them. My word when they take you out
of their warm parlours into cold corridors and land you in an ice-house
with a little bit of a flickering candle."

"You're not tempted to read in bed and you go to sleep in healthy
bracing air; it keeps you _hardy_."

"Do you never read after you retire?"

"I do; and have the gas and a lamp to keep warm. I like warm rooms and I
think in many ways it must be lovely to be able to wear muslin dresses
indoors in snowy weather and put on a fur coat to go out; but I should
be sorry to see the American warm house idea introduced into England."

"You're willing to be inconsistent then."

"Consistency is the something of something minds."

"I guess our central-heated residences would appeal to you."

"I know they would. But I should freeze in the winter; because I
shouldn't be able to wear a fur coat."

"How so?"

"I'm an anti-vivisectionist."

"Then you'd best stay where they're not needed. Your winters don't call
for them. It's the funniest thing in _life_ the way your wimmun go
around in furs."

"Furs are frightfully becoming; like lace and violets."

"Then you exonerate them although you're against the slaying evidently,
as well as the use of beasts for experiment."

"They don't think."

"My word that's true; but all the thinking in creation won't keep an
Esquimau warm without furs."

"There's no need for anyone to live up there. The Hudson's Bay
Commissioners are tradespeople."

"That's a big proposition."

"Well?"

"You'd advocate everyone living in temperate climes to spare the
beasts?"

"There's no reason except trade for anyone to live in snow."

"There's a mighty except."

"Well?"

"What about phthisical subjects who need dry cold climes?"

"Wool and astrakhan."

"Well I guess furs'll be worn for a bit yet."

"That doesn't affect the question."

"I gather you reckon the beasts oughtn't help advance science."

"They don't. Doctors are as ill as anybody."

"True enough. You consider that invalidates medical science?"

"Of course they are over-worked and many of them splendid. But illness
doesn't decrease. If one disease goes down another goes up."

"Great _Cæsar_, where did you come across that?"

"Even so; but suppose they _all_ went up?"

"Besides, you talk about animals advancing science. Even if there wasn't
that great French physiologist or chemist or something who looked at the
result of experiments on animals and said hélàs, nous avons les mains
vides. He declared that there's nothing to be learned about _human_
bodies from animals and even if there were the thing is that the animals
have no choice. We've no right to force them to suffer."

"An animal's constituted differently to a man. You can't compare them in
the matter of sensitiveness to pain."

"I knew you'd say that. If people really want to advance science by
experiments on bodies they should offer their own bodies."

"Someone's been working on your mind if you believe animals suffer more
than men."

"I'd rather see a woman suffer than a man and a man rather than a child
and a child rather than an animal. Animals are bewildered and don't
understand. They have nothing to help them. They don't understand their
sufferings."

"You rate men lower than women in power to endure pain."

"They get more practice."

"You're right there."

"They're less sensitive."

"That's debateable, Wayneflete."

"Women appear to be callous over the sufferings of other women and to
make a fuss over men. It's because sick men are more helpless and
pitiful. Women _appear_ to be. But the sun _appears_ to go round the
earth."

"I doubt if ever there'll come a time when we'll have live humanity in
our experimental laboratories."

"Science has got to go ahead anyway."

"But if it goes ahead by forcing; sensitive creatures; with ...
sensitive nervous systems, to bear fear and pain ... we shall lose more
morally than we shall gain scientifically even if we gain scientifically
and we don't because nearly everyone is _ill_."

"You consider knahludg can be bought at too high a price."

"Well; look at the continental luminaries; where there are no
restrictions; they don't even care about their patients, only diseases
interest them, and in general, not only in science, they don't really
know anything, the Germans and the French, you have only to look at
them. They are brutal."

"That's a large statement. If you'll pardon me I should say there's a
certain amount of insular prejudice in that."

"I have not a scrap of insular prejudice. I like foreigners. They are
more intelligent than Englishmen. But there's something they don't know
that makes them all alike. I once heard a wealthy old Jew say that he'd
go to Germany for diagnosis and to England for treatment, and he'd had
operations and illnesses all over the world. That expresses it."

"You infer that the English have more humanity."

"They don't regard the patient as a case in the way continentals do."

"Well I guess when we're sick we all like to go home."

"You mean the Jew had no home. But he chose the English to go home to
when he was ill."

"That's true in more senses than one. This country's been a home for the
Jews right away back."

"It's a great country. That's sure."

"Science has got to go away ahead. If you're going to be humanitarians
over here you must leave continental science out of your scheme. So long
as you carry out their results you can't honestly cry down their
methods."

"You must cry down their methods if you don't approve of them."

"You can't put back. You can't prevent association between the different
lands; especially in matters of science."

"What _I'm_ saying. You've got to accept the goods, even supposing your
particular constitution of mind inclines you to bulleave them
ill-gotten."

"It's a case of good coming out of evil."

"That's Jesuitical, the end justifying the means. I don't believe that.
Why should science go ahead so fast? Where's the hurry as you say in
Canada?"

"Well, you've only to look around to see that."

"I _don't_ see it. Do you mean that people who make scientific
experiments do it because they want to improve the world. They don't.
It's their curiosity."

"Divine curiosity I've heard it called."

"The divine curiosity of Eve ... that's the answer to the Mosaic fable
about woman. She was interested in the serpent, and polite to him and
gossiped with him. Science is scandal-mongering; gossip about the
universe. Men talk about women gossiping. My word."

"Stars. I'd like some of our chaps to hear you say that."

"It is. Darwin gossiped about monkeys and in his old age he looked
exactly like one and regretted that he had neglected music."

"You can't have it both ways. Each man must pursue one line or another."

"Poor dears yes."

"You're inclined to pity us all."

"That's English humanitarianism may be."

"I'm not a humanitarian. I can't bear humanity, in the mass. I think
it's a frightful idea."

"A fairly solid idea."

"I prefer ... the equator, and the moon, and the plane of the ecliptic;
I think the plane of the ecliptic is a perfectly lovely thing."

"It's a scientific discovery."

"Yes but not on the body of an animal."

"The body of the chap who began all that had some pretty hard
sufferings."

"Do you know the schoolboy's definition of the equator?"

"No, but I guess it's a good one."

"A menagerie lion running round the world once in every twenty-four
hours. I think it's an absolutely perfect idea."

"I guess that's good enough to stop on."

"You off Winchester?"

In the breaking of the group Dr. von Heber came near with his smile. Dr.
Hurd was noisily stretching himself, laughing and coughing. No one was
listening. They were quite alone among their friends, his friends,
Canada. This has been a charming ending to a very lovely day he said
quietly. Miriam beamed and was silent. Did you see the afterglow, she
asked humbly. His smile reappeared. He took in what she said, but beamed
because they were talking. She tried to beat back her words, but they
were on her lips and she was already moving away when she spoke. "A fine
... fuliginous ... _pink_ wasn't it?"

                                   2

"Where is the _harm_ child, in your sitting up at a piano, even behind a
curtain; in a large room in Gower Street, I can't imagine why you say
_GOWER_ Street; playing, with the soft pedal either down or _up_, the
kind of music that you play so beautifully? Can you see her difficulty
Jan?"

"Not even with the most powerful of microscopes."

Lolling on the windowsill of their lives to glance at a passing
show.... The blessed damosel looked out. Leaning, heavy on the golden
balcony. _She_ knew why not. Heavy blossoming weight, weighed down with
her heavy hair, the sky blossoming in it, facing, just able to face
without sinking, the rose-gold world, blossoming under her eyes.

Thin hard fingers of women chattering and tweaking.... They go up
sideways, witches on broomsticks, and chatter angrily in the distance.
They cannot stop the sound of the silent crimson blossoming roses.

"I don't approve of séances."

"Have you ever been to one?"

"No; but I know I don't. It was something about the woman when she asked
me."

"That is a personal prejudice."

"It is not a prejudice; how can it be pre after I have seen her?"

"Séances are wrong; because you have taken a dislike to Madame Devine."

"It can't be right to make half a guinea an hour so easily. And she said
a guinea for occasional public performances." That's all; they know now.
I had made up my mind. I wanted them to _see_ me tempted and refusing
for conscience sake.

"Good Lord; you'd be a millionaire in no time; why not take it until you
are a millionaire and then if you don't like it, chuck it?"

"I should like it all right, my part."

"Well surely that is all that concerns you. You have nothing whatever to
do with what goes on on the other side of the curtain. I think if you
would like the job you are a fool to hesitate, don't you Jan?"

"A fool there was and he made his prayer, yes I think it is foolish to
refuse such an admirable offer."

"A rag and a bone and a hank of hair; that just describes Madame
Devine." That's not true; smooth fat thinness with dark filmy cruel
clothes that last; having supper afterwards; but it would be true in a
magazine; a weird medium; the grocer's wife with second sight was fat
and ordinary; a simple woman. Peter, the rough fisherman.

"Now you are being unchristian."

"I'm not. I love the rag and bone and hank of hair type. Sallow. Like
Mrs. Pat.... The _ingénue_. Sitting in a corner dressed in white,
reading a book. A fat pink face. You can imagine her at forty."

"Now you are being both morbid and improper."

"I'm not morbid. Am I, Jan?"

"No I do not call you morbid. I call Gracie Harter-Jones morbid."

"Who is she?"

"We met her at Mrs. Mackinley's. She says she is perfectly miserable
unless she is in a morbid state. She's written a book called 'The Purple
Shawl of Ceremony.'"

"She must be awfully clever."

"She's mad. She revels in being mad. Like 'the Sun shivered. Earth from
its darkest basements rocked and quivered.'"

"Oh go I said and see the swans harping upon the rooftops in the corn.
Where is the grey felt hat I saw go down, wrinkled and old to meet the
lily-leaf, where where my child the little stick that crushed the wild
infernal apple of the pit where where the pearl. Snarling he cried I
will not have you bless the tropics sitting in a sulky row nor fling
your banners o'er the stately wave; I heard shrill minstrelsies ...
that's all awfully bad; but you can go on forever."

"_I_ couldn't. I don't know how you do it. I think it's awfully clever.
Jan and I roared over your Madeleine Francis Barry letter."

"You can go on for days."

"Barry-paroding."

"You must not wait, nor think of words. If you are in the mood they come
more quickly than you could speak or even think; you follow them and the
whole effect entertains you. There's something in it. You never know
what is coming and you swing about, as long as you keep the rhythm, all
over the world. It refreshes you. Sometimes there are the most beautiful
things. And you see all the things so vividly."

"She's not morbid; she's mad."

"I'm neither morbid nor mad. It's a splendid way of amusing yourself;
better than imagining the chairs in front of you at a concert quietly
collapsing." They were scarcely listening. Both of them were depending
on each other to listen and answer.

"Do you still go to Ruscino's every night Miriam?"

"With the Spaniard? How is the Spaniard?"

"He's eaten up with dizizz."

"With _what_?"

"That's what Miss Scott says."

"How does she know?"

"All the doctors are prescribing for him."

"Did they tell her?"

"I don't know. She just said it suddenly. Like she says things. The
doctors are all awfully fond of him."

"Why are they fond of him?"

"He is extraordinary. He has given up his poster work and does lightning
silhouettes, outlines of heads, at five shillings each at some gardens
somewhere. Sometimes he makes five pounds an evening at it."

"So you _don't_ go to Ruscino's every evening?"

"He had a few weeks of being awfully poor. One day he had only
eightpence in the world. Of course he was having all his meals at
Tansley Street. But that evening he found out that I had nothing at all.
I had been telling him about my meal arrangements. I always pay Mrs.
Bailey at the time for my shilling dinners and when I can't afford them
I get a fourpenny meal at a Y.W.C.A. He made me take his eightpence. The
next day he _walked_ I found afterwards, all the way to South Kensington
in the grilling heat to see a man about the silhouettes."

"What a little brick."

"He is like that to everybody. And always so...."

"So what?"

"Oh, I can't express him. But he's a Jew, you know, a Spanish Jew. Isn't
it extraordinary?"

"Well really Miriam I can't see that there is anything extraordinary
about a man's being a Spanish Jew if he wants to?"

"I was most awfully surprised. Mrs. Bailey told me. There is some Jewish
girl he has been meeting in Kensington; he drew her portrait, a special
one, for her father, for five guineas, and he has engaged himself to her
because he thought she had money and now finds she has not damn her, he
said damn her to Mrs. Bailey, and that he has been boring himself for
nothing. He is going into hospital for his gastric ulcer when the season
is over and then going to disappear. He told me he never spoke to a
woman more than twice; but that he is willing to marry any woman with
enough money."

"Wise man."

"He has spoken more than twice to you."

"Yes but I know what he means. Besides we don't talk, in the society
way."

"How _do_ you talk?"

"Oh, I don't know. I air my theories sometimes. He always disagrees.
Once he told me suddenly it was very bad for me to go about with him."

"But you go."

"Of course I do." The untold scenes were standing in the way. There was
no way of telling them.... Tansley Street life was more and more
unreal to them the deeper it grew. It was unreal to them because things
were kept back. They were still interested in stories of Wimpole Street,
but even there now they only glanced in passing, their thoughts busy in
the shared life they perpetually jested over. They listened with
reservations; not always believing; sitting in dressing-gowns believing
or not as they chose; because one knew one had lost touch and tried to
make things interesting to get back into the old glow....

"How did the dinner-party go off?"

"Beautifully."

"Did you talk German?"

"There was no need; the man talked better English than anybody."

"Why did it go off beautifully? Tell us about the beautiful things."

The strange silent twilight, the reassuring shyness of all the guests;
no attempt to talk about anything in particular; cool hard face and
upright coldly jewelled body; the sense of success with each simple
remark. The evening of music. Life-marked people; their marks showing
without pain, covered, half-healed by the hours of kindness.

"It's something in the Orlys."

"What do you think it is?"

"It's something frightfully beautiful."

"They are very nice people."

"That doesn't mean anything at all."

"The secret of beauty is colour and texture. The ointment will preserve
the colour and the texture of your skin--in any climate. Read her the
piece about the movement of the hands over a tea-tray.... In pouring
out tea never allow the hands to fall slack, or below the level of the
tray. Keep them well in view, moving deftly among the articles on the
tray; sitting well back on the seat of the chair the body upright and a
little inclined forward from the hips--see Chap.: III. "How to Sit"--so
that the movements of the wrist and hands are in easy harmony with the
whole body. Restrain the hands. Do not let the fingers splay out. Do not
cramp them or allow any effort to appear in the movement of any part of
the hand."

"Good heavens. Can't you _see_ those women. But that must be by an
American."

"Why an American?"

"Oh. I don't know. You can tell. Are you going to try all these things?"

"Rather. We're going in heavily for beauty culture."

"We are going to skip, and have Turkish baths, and steam our faces."

"I suppose one ought."

"I think so. I don't see why one should look old before one's time.
One's life is ageing and ravaging. After a Turkish bath one feels like a
new-born babe."

"But it would take all one's time and money."

"Even so. It restores your self-respect to feel perfectly groomed and
therefore perfectly self-possessed. It makes the office respect you."

"I know. I hate the grubbiness of snipe-life--sometimes."

"Only sometimes?"

"Well, I forget about it. If I didn't I should go mad of grit and dust."

"We _are_ mad of grit and dust. That's why we think it's time to do
something."

"H'm."

"You really like the Orlys, don't you?"

"You can't like everybody at once. You have to choose. That's the
trouble. If you are liking one set of people very much you get out of
touch with the others."

"You have so many sets of people."

"I haven't. I hardly know anybody."

"You have hosts of friends."

"I haven't. In the way you mean. I expect I give you wrong impressions."

"Well I think you've a capacity--Don't you think she has a capacity--von
Bohlen?"

"She has some very nice friends and some extraordinary ones."

"Like the Flat."

"How is the Flat?"

"Is she still living on a hard-boiled egg and a bottle of stout?"

"And sending notes?"

"Come round at once my state of mind is awful?"

"She's moved. I forgot to tell you. She came to tell me. She stood on
the landing and said she had taken up journalism. Writing articles, for
The Taper. Isn't it wonderful?"

"Isn't _what_ wonderful?"

"Suddenly being able to write articles. She's met some people called
occultists and says she has never been so happy in her life."... Are
you going to say anything ... why do you not think it wonderful?...

                                   3

Miriam flung down Tansley Street telling her news. Her conflict with the
June dust and heat of the Euston Road had made her forget it. Back in
her own world it leapt at her from every sunlit paving stone; drawing
her on almost at a run. There was enough to carry her leaping steps
right down through London, to the edge of some unfamiliar part and back
again, but her room called her; she would go in and up to it and come
out again.

... _hopeless_ impossibility ... good _reliable_ Budge-Whitlock at
fifteen. You won't get a Primus under twenty-five. Those other makes are
not made to last; giving way inside somewhere where you could not see,
suddenly; in the midst of the traffic; the man's new bicycle, coming in
_two_, in Cheapside ... smiling, I've got a message for you from
Winthrop; well that's not strictly true. The fact is he wants to advance
the money without your knowing it; commissioned me to see what I can do.
You needn't hesitate; he's got plenty of spare cash. I'll buy the
machine and you'll owe the price to me. Kind kind Winthrop, talking in
the workshop. It's a ph-pity she shouldn't av a ph-ph-machine if she
wants one without waiting t-ph save up frit.... I say Miss Henderson
here's a chance for you; new machine going half-price. No bunkum. It's
Lady Slater's. She's off to India. I'll overhaul it for you. Pay as you
like, through her steward. My advice is you close. You won't get a
better chance ... reaping the benefit of Mr. Leyton's eternal talk about
bicycling ... no trouble; overhauled and reliable; coming out of
space.

... Lifted off the earth, sitting at rest in the moving air, the
London air turning into fresh moving air flowing through your head, the
green squares and high houses moving, sheering smoothly along, sailing
towards you changed, upright and alive, moving by, speaking, telescoping
away behind unforgotten, still visible, staying in your forward-looking
eyes, being added to in unbroken movement, a whole, moving silently to
the sound of firm white tyres circling on smooth wood, echoing through
endless future to the riding ring of the little bell, ground easily out
by firm new cogs.... _Country_ roads flowing by in sun and shadow; the
ring of the bell making the hedges brilliant at empty turnings ...
all there in your mind with dew and freshness as you threaded round and
round and in and out of the maze of squares in evening light; consuming
the evening time but leaving you careless and strong; even with the bad
loose hired machine.

She let herself in and swept into the dining-room taking in while she
said eagerly, crossing the room I've bought a machine. A Wolverhampton
Humber. With Beeston tyres. B.S.A. fittings. Ball Bearings ... the
doctors grouped about the mantelpiece. They gathered round her. She was
going backwards; through a scene she recognised; in a dream. Dr. von
Heber's welcoming smile stood at the end of it. They could not be there
idle at that time of day, she assured herself as she talked. She knew
they were there before she came in, without even thinking of them. She
sat down in their midst confidently saying the phrases of the scene as
they came towards her, backwards unfolding. The doctors went back with
her, brothers, supporting and following. Her bicycle led the way. Their
bright world had made it for her.

They had seen the English country with her. It was more alive to them.
They would remember. Dr. von Heber was taking it in, with his best
ruminating smile, as a personal possession; seeing it with English eyes.
Her last year's ride through the counties was shared now. It would go to
Canada.

"It's coming all the way from _Bakewell_."

"Where will that place be?"

"Oh I don't know; somewhere; in the north I think. Yorkshire. No, the
Peak. The Peak district. Peak Freane. They bake splendidly. The further
north you get the better they bake." The scene was swaying forward into
newness. Dr. Winchester suddenly began talking about the historical
interest of the neighbourhood. They had all been down to look at the Old
Curiosity Shop ... there was something about it ... and there was a
better local story of their kind. She told Mr. Leyton's story of the
passage in Little Gower Place, body snatchers carrying newly buried
bodies through it by night from St. Pancras churchyard to the hospital.

"You don't say so. To think we've gone along there this while and not
known."

"That shop in Lincoln's Inn isn't the shop Dickens meant. It's been
pulled down. It's only the site. Some people think Dickens is
sentimental."

"Those who think so are hyper-critical. Besides being sentimental don't
prevent him being one of your very greatest men."

"_You_ should appreciate him highly. If ever there was any man revealed
abuses.... You ought to read our Holmes' Elsie Venner--We call it his
medicated novel over at home" smiled Dr. von Heber. He was speaking low,
making a separate conversation. The others were talking together.

"Yes," murmured Miriam. "I must." They both smiled a wide agreement.
"I've got it over at home" murmured Dr. von Heber his smile deepening
forwards. You shall read it when you come. _We'll_ read it, he said
smiling to himself. She tried to stay where he was, not to be distracted
by her thoughts. It must be Holmes' worst book. A book written on
purpose, to prove something.

"Didactic" she said with helpless suddenness, "but I like Holmes'
breakfast books."

"You've read those?"

"Yes" said Miriam wearily. He had caught something from her thoughts.
She saw him looking smaller, confined to the passing English present, a
passing moment in his determined Canadian life. His strong unconsidered
opinions held him through it and would receive and engulf him forever
when he went back. Perhaps he had not noticed her thoughts. Well I must
bid you a welcome adoo she said getting up to go.

"Now _where_" he smiled rising, and surrounding her with his smile,
"where did you discover Artemus _Ward_?"

                               CHAPTER IX

                                   1

It was Mrs. Bailey coming up the top flight clearing her throat. Tapping
at the door.

"Ah. I thought the young lady was in. I _thought_ so." Mrs. Bailey stood
approving inside the door. The sunlight streamed on to her shabby skirt.
The large dusty house, the many downstair rooms, the mysterious
dark-roomed vault of the basement, all upright in her upright form;
hurried smeary cleansings, swift straightening of grey-sheeted beds, the
strange unfailing water-system, gurgling cisterns, gushing taps and
lavatory flushes, the wonder of gaslight and bedroom candles, the daily
meals magically appearing and disappearing; her knowledge of the various
mysteriously arriving and vanishing people, all beginning and ending in
her triumphant, reassuring smile that went forward outside beyond these
things, with everybody.

Now that she was there, bearing and banishing all these heavy things,
the squat green teapot on the table in the blaze of window-light, the
Chinese lantern hanging from the hook in the ceiling, the little Madras
muslin curtains at either end of the endmost lattices made a picture and
set the room free from the challenge of the house accumulating as Miriam
had come up through it and preventing the effect she had sought when she
put out the green teapot on the sunlit table. She was receiving Mrs.
Bailey as a guest, backed up by the summery little window-room. She
stood back in the gloom, dropping back into the green lamplit stillness
of the farm-house garden. The Song of Hiawatha sounded on and on amongst
the trees, the trunk of the huge sheltering oak lit brightly by the
shaded lamp on the little garden table, the forms in the long chairs
scarcely visible. She offered Mrs. Bailey the joy of her journey down,
her bicycle in the van, Miss Szigmondy's London guests, the
sixteenth-century ingle, the pine-scented bedrooms with sloping floors,
the sandy high-banked lanes and pine-clad hills, the strange talk with
the connoisseur, the kind stupid boyish mind of the London doctor who
had _seen_ myopic astigmatism across the lunch table and admitted being
beaten in argument without resentment; the long dewy morning ride to
Guildford; the happy thorns in her hands keeping the week-end still
going on at Wimpole Street; her renewed sense of the simplicity of
imposing looking people, their personal helplessness on the surface of
wealthy social life; the glow of wealthy social life lighting the little
wooden window-room, gleaming from the sheeny flecks of light on the
well-shaped green teapot.

Mrs. Bailey advanced to the middle of the floor and stood looking
towards the window. My word aren't we _smart_ she breathed.

"I like the teapot and the lantern, don't you?" said Miriam.

"Very pretty, mts, very pretty, young lady."

"It reminds me of week-ends. It _is_ a week-end. That is my
drawing-room."

"That's it. It's a week-end," beamed Mrs. Bailey. But she had come for
something. The effect was not spoiled by giving a wrong, _social_
impression of it, because Mrs. Bailey was busily thinking behind her
voice. When she had gone the silent effect would be there, more
strongly. Perhaps she had some new suggestion to make about Sissie.

"Well, young lady, I want to talk to you." Mrs. Bailey propped one elbow
on the mantelpiece and brushed at her skirt. Miriam waited, watching
her impatiently. The Tansley Street life was fading into the glow of the
oncoming holiday season. Rain was cooling the July weather, skirmishy
sunlit April rain and wind drawing her forward. There was leisure in
cool uncrowded streets and restaurants and in the two cool houses, no
pressure of work, the gay easy August that was almost as good as a
holiday, and the certainty beyond the rain, of September brilliance.

"Well you know I've a great regard for you, young lady."

Miriam stared back at the long row of interviews with Mrs. Bailey and
sought her face for her invisible thoughts.

"Well to come straight to the point without beating about the bush, it's
about him, that little man, you know who I mean."

"Who?"

"Mendizzable."

Miriam's interest awoke and flared. That past patch of happy life had
been somehow or other visible to Mrs. Bailey. She felt decorated and
smiled into the room.

"Well; you know I don't believe in talk going about from one to another.
In _my_ opinion people should mind their own business and not listen to
tittle-tattle, or if they do, keep it to themselves without passing it
on and making mischief."

"Has someone been trying to make mischief about poor little Mr.
Mendizabal?"

"Well, if it was about him I wouldn't mind so much. Little villain.
That's my name for him."

"Fascinating little villain if he must be called a villain."

"Well; that's what I've got to ask you my chahld; are you under a
fascination about him? You'll excuse me asking such a question."

Solicitude! _what_ for?

"Well. I _did_ think him fascinating; he fascinated me, he would
anybody. He would fascinate Miss _Scott_ if he chose."

"'Er? 'Er be fascinated by anybody? She thinks too much of number one
for that."

... Miss Scott. Dressing so carefully, so full of independent talk
and laughter and not able to be fascinated ... too far-seeing to be
fascinated.

"But why do you ask? I'm not responsible for Mr. Mendizabal's being a
fascinating little man."

"Fascinating little _devil_. You should have heard Dr. Winchester."

Something hidden; all the time; behind the politeness of the house.

"Dr. _Win_chester?"

"Dr. Winchester. Do you remember him coming out into the hall one
evening when you were brushing your coat?"

"And brushing it for me. Yes."

"He didn't know how to let you go." There was a trembling in Mrs.
Bailey's voice. "He said," she pursued breathlessly, "he was in two
minds to come with you himself."

"_Where? Why?_"

"Why? He _knew_ that fella was waiting for you round the corner."

Suddenly appearing, brushing so carefully ... why not have spoken and
come.

"Well now we're coming to it. I can't tell you how it all happened,
that's between Mr. Gunner and Miss S. They got to know you was going out
with Mendizzable and where you went. It's contemptible I know, if you
like, but there's many such people about."

Miriam checked her astonishment, making a mental note for future
contemplation of the spectacle of Mr. Gunner, or Miss Scott, following
her to Ruscino's. They had told Mrs. Bailey and talked to the
doctors.... Spies; talking idle; maliciously picking over her secret
life.

"Dr. Winchester said he was worried half out of his senses about you."

"Why not have said so?"

"You may be wondering," Mrs. Bailey flushed a girlish pink, "why I come
up to-day telling you all this. That's just what _I_ say. That's just
the worst of it. He never breathed a word to me till he went."

Dr. Winchester _gone_ ... the others gone ... of _course_. Next week
would be August. They had all vanished away; out of the house, back to
Canada. Dr. von Heber gone without a word. Perhaps _he_ had been
worried. They _all_ had. That was why they had all been so nice and
surrounding.... That was the explanation of everything.... They
were brothers. Jealous brothers. The first she had had. This was the
sort of thing girls had who had brothers. Cheek. If only she had known
and shown them how silly they were.

"Lawk. I wish to goodness he'd come straight to me at once."

"Well. It's awfully sweet of them from their point of view. They were
such _awfully_ nice little men in their way."... _Why_ didn't they
come to me, instead of all this talk? They knew me well enough. All
those long talks at night. And all the time they were seeing a foolish
girl fascinated by a disreputable foreigner. How dare they?

"That's what I say. I can't forgive him for that. They're all alike.
Selfish."

"All old men like Dr. Winchester are selfish. Selfish and weak. They get
to think of nothing but their comforts. And keep out of everything by
talk."

"It's not him I mean. It's the other one."

"Which?" What was Mrs. Bailey going to say? What? Miriam gazed angrily.

"That's what I must tell you. That's why I asked you if you was under a
fascination."

"Oh well, they've gone. What does it matter?"

"I feel I ought to tell you. He, von Heber, had made up his mind to
_speak_. He was one in a thousand, Winchester said. She's lost von Heber
he said. He thought the _world_ of her, 'e sez," gasped Mrs. Bailey. "My
_word_, I wish I'd known what was going on."

Miriam flinched. Mrs. Bailey must be made to go now.

"Oh really," she said in trembling tones. "He was an awfully nice man."

"My word. Isn't it a pity," said Mrs. Bailey with tears in her eyes. "It
worries me something shocking."

"Oh well, if he was so stupid."

"Well, you can't blame him after what Mendizzable _said_."

"You haven't told me."

"He said he'd only to raise his finger. Oh Lawk. Well there you are, now
you've got it all."

Mrs. Bailey _must_ go. Mr. Mendizabal's mind was a French novel. He'd
said French thoughts in English to the doctors. They had believed. Even
Canadian men can have French minds.

"Yes. Well I see it all now. Mr. Mendizabal's vanity is his own
affair.... I'm sure I hope they've all had an interesting summer. I'm
awfully glad you've told me. It's most interesting."

"Well, I felt it was my duty to come up and tell you. I felt you ought
to know."

"Yes ... I'm awfully glad you've told me. It's like, er, a storm in a
teacup."

"It's not them I'm thinking of. Lot of low-minded gossips. That's my
opinion. It's the harm they do I'm thinking of."

"They can't do any harm. As for the doctors they're quite able to take
care of themselves." Miriam moved impatiently about the room. But she
could not let herself look at her thoughts with Mrs. Bailey there.

"Well young lady," murmured Mrs. Bailey dolorously at last, "I felt I
couldn't do less than come up, for my _own_ satisfaction."

She thinks I have made a scandal, without consulting her ... her mind
flew, flaming, over the gossiping household, over Mrs. Bailey's thoughts
as she pondered the evidence. Wrenching away from the spectacle she
entrenched herself far off; clutching out towards the oblivion of the
coming holidays; a clamour came up from the street, the swaying tumult
of a fire-engine, the thunder of galloping horses, the hoarse shouts of
the firemen; the outside life to which she went indifferent to any
grouped faces either of approval or of condemnation.

"I'm awfully sorry you've had all this, Mrs. Bailey."

"Oh that's nothing. It's not that I think of."

"Don't think about anything. It doesn't matter."

"Well I've got it off my mind now I've spoken."

"It _is_ abominable isn't it. Never mind. I don't care. People are
perfectly welcome to talk about me if it gives them any satisfaction."

"That is so. It's von Heber I'm so mad about."

"They're all alike as you say."

"He might have given you a chance."

Dr. von _Heber_; suddenly nearer than anyone. Her own man. By his own
conviction. Found away here, at Mrs. Bailey's; Mrs. Bailey's regret
measuring his absolute genuineness. Gone away....

She steadied herself to say "Oh, if he's selfish."

"They're all that, every one of them. But we've all got to settle in
life, sooner or later."

That was all, for Mrs. Bailey. She rallied woefully in the thought that
Mrs. Bailey knew she could have settled in life if she had chosen.

Flickering faintly far away was something to be found behind all this,
some silent thing she would find by herself if only Mrs. Bailey would
go.

_Fascinated._ How did they find the word? It was true; and false. This
was the way people talked. These were the true-false phrases used to sum
up things for which there were no words.

They had no time. They were too busy. That was in the scheme. They were
somehow prevented from doing anything. Dr. von Heber had been saved. The
fascinating eyes and snorting smile had saved him; coming out of space
to tell him she was a flirt. He had boasted. She adore me; hah! I tell
you she adore me, he would say. It was history repeating itself. Max and
Ted. Again after all these years. A _Jew_.

                                   2

The unconscious, inexorable ship ... gliding across the Atlantic.
They would take up their bright Canadian life again. England, a silent
picture, fading.... Dear Dr. von Heber. I owe it to myself just to
inform you that the legend you heard about me was untrue. Wishing you a
happy and prosperous career yours truly. That would be saying I, fool,
have discovered too late that I was not clever enough to let you imagine
that you were the only kind of man in the world ... discreet women are
sly. To get on in the world it is necessary to be sly. Von Heber is sly.
Careful and prudent and sly. What did genius Wayneflete think? Genius
understands everything. Discreet proper clever women are open books to
him. He will never marry. Whimsical old failure, Winchester,
disappearing into British Columbia; failure; decorated in his evening
conversations by having been to England.... My dear von Heber, what
the devil do you mean? When will you meet me? Choose your own weapons
... that would be admitting not having the right to be as free and
indiscreet as one chooses ... "a woman must march with her regiment;
if she is wise she does"; something like that. If a woman is _sly_ she
marches with her regiment ... all in agreement, being sly and
discreet, helping each other. What for? What was the plot for? ...
there's a _word_ ... _coercion_, that's the word. Better any sort of
free life.

If he could have _seen_. But then he would have seen those other moments
too. Von Heber. Power and success. Never any moments like that. Divided
life all the time _always_. So much for his profession, so much for her,
outside it with the regiment of women. Proper men can't bring the wild,
gleaming ... channel of flowers, pulling dragging to fling yourself
headlong down it and awake, dead. Dead if you do. Dead if you don't. Now
Tomlinson gave up the ghost.

                                   3

"You're just in time." They had come back? He had come back for
something?

"There's a surprise waiting for you upstairs"; _what_ surprise Mrs.
Bailey; how can you be happy and mysterious; cajoling to rush on into
nothing, sweeping on, talking; "a friend of yorse; Dr. Winchester's
room; she's longing to see you."

"Good heavens."

Miriam fled upstairs and tapped at the door of the room below her own. A
smooth fluting thoughtful voice answered tranquilly from within the
spaces of the room behind the closed door. There was no one with a voice
like that to speak to intimately. It was a stranger, someone she had met
somewhere and given the address to; a superior worldly person serenely
answering the knock of a housemaid. She went in. Tall figure, tall skirt
and blouse standing at the dressing-table. The grime-screened saffron
light fell on white hands pinning a skein of bright gold hair round the
back of a small head. How do you do, Miriam announced, coming forward
with obedient reluctance. The figure turned; a bent flushed face laughed
from tumbled hair.

"'Ere I am dear; turned up like a bad penny. I'll shake 'ands in a
minute." With compressed lips and bent frowning brow Miss Dear went on
busily pinning. "Bother my silly hair," she went on with deepening
flush, "I shall be able to talk to you in a minute."

Miriam clutched at the amazed resentment that flamed from her up and
down the sudden calm unconscious facade reared between her and the
demolished house, spread across the very room that had held the key to
its destruction. She fought for annihilating words, but her voice had
spoken ahead of her.

"_El_eanor!"

With the word a soft beauty ran flickering, an edge of light about the
form searched by her gazing eyes. Their shared past flowed in the room
... the skirt was a shabby thin blue serge, rubbed shiny, the skimpy
cotton blouse had an ugly greyish stripe and badly cut shoulders, one
and eleven at an awful shop, but she was just going to speak.

"There that's better," she said lowering her hands to tweak at the
blouse, her blue eyes set judiciously on the face of the important
Duchesse mirror, her passing servant. "'Ow _are_ you, dear?"

"_I'm_ all right;" thrilled Miriam, "you're just in time for dinner."

"I am afraid I don't look very _din_nery," frowned Miss Dear, fingering
the loose unshapely collar of her blouse. "I wonder if you could let me
have a tie, just for to-day, dear."

"I've got a lace one, but it's crumply," hazarded Miriam.

"I can manage it I daresay if you'd let me avit."

The gong sounded. "I shan't be a second," Miriam promised and fled. The
little stair-flight and her landing, the sunset gilded spaces of her
room flung her song out into the world. The tie was worse than she had
thought, its middle length crushed and grubby. She hesitated over a card
of small pearl-headed lace pins, newly bought and forgotten. For
fourpence three farthings the twelve smooth filmy pearl heads, their
bright sharp-pointed gilt shanks pinned in a perfect even row through
the neat oblong of the sheeny glazed card, lit up her drawer, bringing
back the lace-hung aisles of the west-end shop, its counters spread with
the fascinating details of the worldly life. The pins were the forefront
of her armoury, still too blissfully new to be used.... However
Eleanor arranged the tie she could not use more than three.

"Thank you dear," she said indifferently, as if they were her own things
obligingly brought in, and swiftly pinned one end of the unexamined tie
to her blouse collar. With lifted chin she deftly bound the lace round
and round close to her neck each swathe firmly pinned, making a column
wider than the width of the lace. Above her blouse, transformed by the
disappearance of its ugly collar, her graceful neck went up, a column of
filmy lace. Miriam watched, learning and amazed.

"That's better than nothing anyhow," said Miss Dear from her sideways
movements of contemplation. Three or four small pearly heads gleamed
mistily from the shapely column of lace. The glazed card lay on the
dressing-table crumpled and rent and empty of all its pins.

                                   4

The dining-room was a buzz of conversation. The table was packed save
for two chairs on Mrs. Bailey's right hand. _Mrs. Bailey_ was wearing a
_black satin blouse_ cut in a V and a piece of black ribbon-velvet tied
round her neck! She was in conversation, preening and arching as she
ladled out the soup, with a little _lady_ and a big old _gentleman_ with
a patriarch beard sitting on her right bowing and smiling, personally,
towards Miriam and Miss Dear as they took their seats. Miriam bowed and
gazed as they went on talking. The old gentleman had a large oblong head
above a large expensive spread of smooth well-cut black coat; a huge
figure, sitting tall, with easily moving head reared high, massy grey
hair; unspectacled smiling glistening eyes and oblong fresh cheeked face
wreathed in smiles revealing gleaming squares of gold stopping in his
front teeth. His voice was vast and silky, like the beard that moved as
he spoke, shifting about on the serviette tucked by one corner into his
neck. His little wife was like a kind bird, soft curtains of greying
black hair crimping down from a beautifully twisted top-knot on either
side of a clear gentle forehead. Softly gleaming eyes shone through
rimless pince-nez perched delicately on her delicate nose, no ugly
straight bar, a little half-hoop to join them together and at the side a
delicate gold chain tucked over one ear ... she was about as old as
mother had been ... she was exactly like her ... girlishly young,
but untroubled; the little white ringed left hand with strange
unfamiliarly expressive finger-tips and curiously mobile turned-back
thumb-tip was herself in miniature. It held a little piece of bread,
peaked, expressively, as she ate her soup. She was utterly familiar, no
stranger; always known. Miriam adored, seeking her eyes till she looked,
and meeting a gentle enveloping welcome, making no break in her
continuous soft animation. The only strange thing was a curious
_circular_ sweep of her delicate jaw as she spoke; a sort of wide
mouthing on some of her many quiet words, thrown in through and between
and together with the louder easily audible silky tones of her husband.
Mrs. Bailey sat unafraid, expanding in happiness. You _will_ have a
number of things to see she was saying. We are counting on this laddie
to be our guide, said the old gentleman turning hugely to his further
neighbour. Miriam's eyes followed and met the face of Dr. _Hurd_ ...
_grinning_; his intensest brick-red grin. He had not gone! These were
his _parents_. _He_ needs a holiday too, the dear lad, said the old
gentleman laying a hand on his shoulder. Dr. Hurd grinned a rueful
disclaimer with his eyes still on Miriam's and said I shan't be sorry,
his face crinkling with his unexploded hysterically leaping laugh. Mrs.
Hurd's smiling little face flickered with quickly smothered sadness.
They had come all the way from Canada to share his triumph and were here
smoothing his defeat.... Canadian old people. A _Canadian_ woman ...
that circular jaw movement was made by the Canadian vowels. They
disturbed a woman's small mouth more than a man's. It must affect her
thoughts, the held-open mouth; _airing_ them; making them _circular_,
sympathetically balanced, easier to go on from than the more narrowly
mouthed English speech.... Mr. Gunner, sitting beside your son is a
violinist.... Ah. We shall hope to hear him. Mr. Gunner, small and
shyly smiling, next to him an _enormous_ woman with a large school-girl
face, fair straight and school-girl hair lifted in a flat wave from her
broad forehead into an angry peak, angrily eating with quickly moving
brawny arms coming out of elbow sleeves with cheap cream lace frilling,
reluctantly forced to flop against the brawny arms. Sallow good-looking
husband, olive, furious, cocksure, bilious type, clubby and knowing,
flat ignorance on the top of his unconscious shiny round black skull,
both snatching at scraps of Scott and Sissie and Gunner chaff, trying to
smile their way in to hide their fury with each other. Too poor to get
further away from each other, accustomed to boarding house life, eating
rapidly and looking for more. She had several brothers; a short
aristocratic upper lip and shapely scornful nostrils, brothers in the
diplomatic service or the army. There was someone this side of the table
they recognised as different and were watching; a tall man beyond Mrs.
Barrow, a strange _fine_ voice with wandering protesting inflections;
speaking out into the world, with practised polished wandering
inflections, like a tired pebble worn by the sea, going on and on,
presenting the same worn wandering curves wherever it was, always a
stranger everywhere, always anew presenting the strange wandering
inflections; indiscriminately. That end of the table was not aware of
the Hurds. Its group was wandering outside the warm glow of Canadian
society. Eleanor Dear was feeling at its doors, pathetic-looking with
delicate appealing head and thoughtful baby brow downcast. Us'll wander
out this evening shall us, murmured Miriam in a lover-like undertone. It
was a grimace at the wide-open door of Canadian life; an ironic kick à
la Harriet. Her heart beat recklessly round the certainty of writing and
posting her letter. If he cared he would understand. Mrs. Hurd had come
to show her Canadian society, brushing away the tangles and stains of
accidental contacts; putting everything right. Of course we will,
bridled Miss Dear rebuking her vulgarity. Nothing mattered now but
filling up the time.

The table was breaking up; the Hurds retiring in a backward-turning
group talking to Mrs. Bailey, towards the door. The others were standing
about the room. The Hurds had gone. _Oh_-no, _that's_ all right, Mrs.
Bailey; _I'll_ be all right. It was the wandering voice.... It went on,
up and down, the most curious different singing tones, the sentences
beginning high and dropping low and ending on an even middle tone that
sounded as if it were going on. It had a meaning without the meaning of
the words. Mrs. Bailey went on with some explanation and again the voice
sent out its singing shape; up and down and ending on a waiting tone.
Miriam looked at the speaker; a tall grey clad man, a thin pale
absent-minded face, standing towards Mrs. Bailey, in a drooping lounge,
giving her all his attention, several people were drifting out of the
room, down-bent towards her small form; Eleanor Dear was waiting,
sitting docile, making no suggestion, just right, like a sister; but his
eyes never met Mrs. Bailey's; they were fixed, burning, on something far
away; his thoughts were far away, on something that never moved. There
was a loud rat-tat on the front door, more than a telegram and less than
a caller; a claim, familiar and peremptory. Mrs. Bailey looked sharply
up. Sissie was ambling hurriedly out of the room. Oh _dear_, chirruped
Eleanor softly, _some_one wants to come in. Well; I'll say goodnight,
said the grey figure and turned easily with a curious waiting halting
lounge, exactly like the voice, towards the door. It could stop easily,
if anyone were coming in, and wander on again in an unbroken movement.
The grey shoulders passing out through the door with the gaslight on
them had no look of going out of the room, desolate, they looked
_desolate_. The room was almost empty. Mrs. Bailey was listening
undisguisedly towards the hall. Sissie came in looking watchfully about.
It's Mr. Rodkin, mother dear she said sullenly. _Rod_kin? _'Im?_ gasped
Mrs. Bailey, transfigured. Can I come in? asked a deep hollow
insinuating voice at the door, how do you do Mrs. Bailey? Mrs. Bailey
had flung the door wide and was laughing and shaking hands heartily up
and down with a small swarthy black moustached little man with an armful
of newspapers and a top hat pushed back on his head. _Well_, he said
uncovering a small bony sleek black head and sliding into a chair, his
hat sticking out from the hand of the arm clasping the great bundle of
newspapers. How _grand_ you are. Moy word. What's the meaning of it? His
teeth gleamed brilliantly. He had small high prominent cheek-bones,
yellow beaten-in temples and a yellow hollow face; yet something almost
dimpling about his smile. Aren't we? chuckled Mrs. Bailey taking his
hat. Mr. Rodkin drew his hand over his face, yawning Well I've been
_every_where since I left; _Mos_cow, _Pe_tersburg, Ba_toom_, Harr-_bin_,
_every_where. Moy _wort_. Miss Sissie you are a grown-up grand foine
young lady. What is it all about? No joke; _tell_ me I say. Mrs. Bailey
sat at ease smiling triumphantly. A grand foine dinner.... Well you
wouldn't have me _starve_ my boarduz. _Boarders_ murmured Mr. Rodkin,
_My_ God. He jerked his head back with a laugh and jerked it down again.
Well it's good business anyhow. _Bless_ my heart! They talked familiarly
on, two tired worn people in a little blaze of mutual congratulation.
Mr. Rodkin had come to stay at once without going away. He noticed no
one but the Baileys and questioned on and on yawning and laughing with
sudden jerks of his head.

Coming back from sitting flirting with Eleanor at Donizetti's, Miriam
wandered impatiently into the dark dining-room. Eleanor was not her
guest. Why didn't she go up to her room and leave her to the dim
street-lit dining-room and the nightly journey up through the darkness
to her garret in freedom. Bed-time she hinted irritably, tugging at the
tether. Bed-time echoed Eleanor, her smooth humouring nurse's voice
bringing in her world of watchful diplomatic manœuvring, scattering the
waiting population of the familiar dim room. I'm going to bed stated
Miriam advancing towards the windows. On the table under the window that
was the most brightly lit by the street-lamps was a paper, a pamphlet
... coloured; blue. She took it up. It hung limply in her hand, the
paper felt pitted and poor, like very thin blotting paper. _Young
Ireland_ she read printed in thick heavy black lettering across the top
of the page. The words stirred her profoundly, calling to something far
away within her, long ago. Underneath the thick words two short columns
side by side began immediately. They went on for several pages and were
followed by short paragraphs with headings; she pressed close to the lit
window, peering; there were blotchy badly printed asterisks between
small groups of lines. Heavy black headings further on, like the title,
but smaller, and followed by thick exclamation signs. It was a sort of
little newspaper, the angry print too heavy for the thin paper. Green.
It was green all through ... _Ireland_; home-rule. I _say_ she
exclaimed eagerly. That was the grey man. _Irish_. That's all going on
still she said solicitously to a large audience. _What_ dear asked
Eleanor's figure close to her side. Ireland, breathed Miriam. We've got
a home-ruler in the house. Look at this; green all through. It's some
propaganda, in London, very angry. I 'ope the home-ruler isn't green all
through chuckled Eleanor smoothly. It's the wearin' o' the green scolded
Miriam. The Emerald Isle. We're so stupid. An Irish girl I knew told me
she 'just couldn't bear to face thinking' of the way we treat our
children.

Leaving Eleanor abruptly in darkness in her bedroom she shut the door
and stepped into freedom. The cistern gurgled from the upper dark
freshness. Her world was uninvaded. Klah-rah _Buck_, in reverent
unctuousness, waiting for responsive awe from those sitting round. He
meant Clara Butt. Then she had been to Canada. He had expected....
Little Mrs. Hurd had sat birdlike at a Morning Musical hearing the sweep
of the tremendous voice. I have never heard it, but I know how it rolls
tremendously out and sweeps. I can hear it by its effect on them. They
would not believe that. Rounding the sweep of the little staircase she
was surprised by a light under the box-room door. Mrs. Bailey, at
midnight, busy in the little box-room? How could she find room to have
the door shut? Her garret felt fresh and free. Summer rain pattering on
the roof in the darkness. The _Colonisation of Ulster_. Her mind turned
the pages of a school essay, page after page, no red-ink corrections,
the last page galloping along one long sentence; "until England shall
have recognised her cruel folly." 10; _excellent_, E.B.R. A fraud and
yet not a fraud. Never having thought of Ireland before reading it up in
Green, and then some strange indignation and certainty, coming suddenly
while writing; there for always. I had forgotten about it. A man's
throat was cleared in the box-room. The tone of the wandering voice....
Mrs. Bailey had screwed him into that tiny hole. _I'll_ be all
_right_.... What a shame. He must not know anyone knew he was there. He
did not know he was the first to disturb the top landing.... He did not
disturb it. There were no English thoughts in there, nothing of the
downstairs house. Julia Doyle, Dublin Bay, _Clontarf_; fury underneath,
despairing of understanding, _showing_ how the English understood
nothing, themselves nor anyone else. But the Irish were not people ...
they did not care for _anything_. Meredith was partly Celtic. _That_ was
why his writing always felt to be pointing in some invisible direction.
He wrote so much because he did not care about anything. Novelists were
angry men lost in a fog. But how did they find out how to do it? Brain.
Frontal development. But it was not certain that that was not just the
extra piece wanted to control the bigger muscular system. Sacrificed to
muscle. Going about with more muscles and a bit more brain, if _size_
means _more_, doing all kinds of different _set_ pieces of work in the
world, each in a space full of problems none of them could agree about.

                                   5

"_Gracious._ You'll ave to be up early in the morning to say all those
names dear."

                               CHAPTER X

Eleanor's cab rumbled away round the corner. Mrs. Bailey was still
standing at the top of the steps. Miriam ran up the steps looking busily
ahead. It's going to be a lovely evening she said as she passed Mrs.
Bailey. She was safely in the hall. But the front door was closed and
Mrs. Bailey was in the hall just behind her. She turned abruptly, almost
colliding with her, into the dining-room. Mrs. Bailey's presence was
there waiting for her in the empty room. Behind her just inside the door
was Mrs. Bailey, blocking the way to the untrammelled house. There's
quite a lot of August left she quoted from the thoughts that had poured
down to meet her as she stood facing the stairs. The clock on the
mantelpiece was telling the time of Mrs. Bailey's day. The empty room
was waiting for the next event, a spread meal, voices sounding towards a
centre, distracting attention from its increasing shabbiness ...
there was never _long_ for it to remain sounding its shabbiness, the
sound of dust, into the empty space. Events going on and on, giving no
time to get in, behind the dusty shabbiness to the sweet dreams and
health and quiet breathing....

"What a jolly big room this _is_, isn't it?" she demanded, turning
towards Mrs. Bailey's shapely skimpy form. Mrs. Bailey knew she was
chafing in the airless shabby room. The windows closed to keep the dust
_out_ made the dust _smell_.

"Isn't it?" agreed Mrs. Bailey cordially.

"You _must_ have been glad to get rid of the lodgers and have possession
of the whole house."

"Yes" said Mrs. Bailey straightening the sideboard cloth.

Hearty agreement about the advantages and disadvantages of boarders and
then, I think it's very _plucky_ of you and away upstairs. A few words
about the interest of having boarders to begin getting to the door with.

"The Irishman's an interesting specimen of humanity."

"Isn't he interesting," laughed Mrs. Bailey moving further into the
room.

"It's much more interesting to have boarders than lodgers" said Miriam
moving along the pathway of freedom towards the open door. Mrs. Bailey
stood silent, watching politely. There was no way out. Mrs. Bailey's
presence would be waiting in the hall, and upstairs, unappeased. Miriam
glanced towards her without meeting her eyes and sat limply down on the
nearest chair.

"Phoo--it's rather a relief," she murmured.

Mrs. Bailey went briskly to the door and closed it and came freely back
into the room, a little exacting figure who had seen all her selfish
rejoicing. She would get up now and walk about the room, talking easily
and eloquently about Eleanor's charm and go away leaving Mrs. Bailey
mystified and disposed of.

"My _word_" declared Mrs. Bailey tweaking the window curtains. Then Mrs.
Bailey _was_ ready and anxious to talk her over and impart her opinion.
After seeming to like her so much and being so attentive and sending her
off so gaily and kindly, she had some grievance. It was not the bill. It
was a matter of opinion. Mrs. Bailey had been charmed and had yet seen
through her. Seen what? What was the everlasting secret of Eleanor? She
imagined them standing talking together, politely, and joking and
laughing. Mrs. Bailey would like Eleanor's jokes; they would be in
agreement with her own opinions about things. But she had formed some
idea of her and was ready to express it. If it explained anything one
would have to accept it, from Mrs. Bailey. To make nice general remarks
about her and enquire insincerely about the bill would be never to get
Mrs. Bailey's uninfluenced opinion. She would not give it unless she
were asked.

"I'm awfully sorry for her," she said in Eve's voice. That would mean
just her poverty and her few clothes and delicate health. There could be
an insincere discussion. It might end in nothing and the mean selfish
joy would still be waiting upstairs as soon as one had forgotten that it
was mean and selfish.

"So am _I_" said Mrs. Bailey heartily. There was anger in her face.
There really _was_ something, some really bad opinion about Eleanor.
Mrs. Bailey thought these things more important than joyful freedom. She
was one of those people who would do things; then there were other
people too; then one need not trouble about what it was or warn people
against Eleanor. The world would find out and protect itself, passing
her on. If Mrs. Bailey felt there was something wrong, no one need feel
blamed for thinking so. There was. _What_ was it?

"I'm the last to be down on anyone in difficulties" said Mrs. Bailey.

"Oh yes." It was coming.

"It's the _way_ of people _I_ look to." She stopped. If she were not
pressed she would say no more.

"Oh, by the way, Mrs. Bailey, has her bill been settled?" The voice of
Mrs. Lionel ... she's unsquashable my dear, absolutely unsquashable.
You never saw _anything_ like it in your _life_. But she's done frerself
in Weston. It might finish the talk.

"That's all in order young lady. It's not that at all."

"Oh, I know. I'm glad though."

"I had my own suspicions before you told me you'd be responsible. I
never thought about that."

"No, I see."

"It's the _way_ of people."

"Well you know I told you at once that you must have her here at your
own risk after the first week, and that I hardly knew anything about
her." If she had paid the two weeks so easily perhaps Mr. Taunton was
still looking after her needs. No. She would have mentioned him. He had
dropped her entirely; after all he had said.

"I'm not blaming you, young lady." Perhaps Mrs. Bailey had offered
advice and been rebuffed in some way. There would be some mysterious
description of character; like the Norwegian ... 'selfish in a way I
couldn't describe to you'....

"If I'd known what it was going to be I'd not have had her in the house
two days."

... some man ... who? ... but they were out all day and Eleanor had
been with her every evening. Besides Mrs. Bailey would sympathise with
that.... She was furiously angry; "not two days." But she _had_ been
charmed. Charmed and admiring.

"Did she flirt with some one?"

"That" said Mrs. Bailey gravely, "I can't tell you. She may have; that's
her own affair. I wouldn't necessary blame her. Everyone's free to do as
they like provided they behave theirselves." Mrs. Bailey was brushing at
her skirt with downcast eyes.

... This woman had opened Dr. von Heber's letter; knew he was coming
next year; knew that he "would not have permitted" any talk at all, and
that all her interference was meaningless. _He_ was coming, carrying his
suitcase out of the hospital, no need for the smart educated Canadian
nurses to think about him ... taking ship ... coming back. Perhaps
she resented having been in the wrong.

"It was funny how she found a case so suddenly," said Miriam drawing
herself upright, careless, like a tree in the wind. She had already
forgotten she would always feel like that, her bearing altered for ever,
held up by him, like a tree in the wind, everyone powerless to embarrass
her. Poor Mrs. Bailey....

"You see I feel I drove her to it, in a way."

Mrs. Bailey listened smiling keenly.

"Yes you _see_" pursued Miriam cheerfully, "I told her she would be all
right for a week. I blamed _you_ for that, said you were flourishing and
she could pay when her ship came home."

"That's what you told her eh?"

"Well and then when she admitted she had no money and I knew I couldn't
manage more than a week, I advised her to apply to the C.O.S. She said
she would and seemed delighted and when I asked her about it later she
cried and said she hadn't been. I said she must do _something_ and then
suddenly this case appeared. _Where_ I don't know."

"I don't blame her for not wanting to go _there_."

"Why?"

"My word. I'd as soon go straight to the parish."

"Wilberforce believes in them. He says if you really want to help the
helpless you will not flaunt your name in subscription lists but hand
your money over to the C.O.S. They are the only charitable organization
that does not pauperise."

"Him? Wilberforce? He has a right to his own opinions I don't deny. But
if he'd ever been in difficulties he might change them. _Insulting_,
that's my opinion. My word the _questions_ they ask. You can't call your
soul your own."

"I didn't know that. That friend my sister brought here was being helped
by them."

"How is Miss Henderson?"

"Perfectly happy. Being with the Greens again seems _Paradise_ she says,
after London. She's satisfied now."

"Mts. She's a sweet young lady; them's fortunate as have her."

"Well now she's tried something else she appreciates the beautiful home.
I don't think she wants to be free."

"Quite so. Persons differ. But she's her own mistress; free to leave."

"Of course it's nicer now. The children are at school. She's
confidential companion. They all like her so much. They invented it for
her."

"Quite right. That's as it should be."

"And she is absolutely in Mrs. Green's confidence now. I don't know what
poor Mrs. Green would do without her. She went back just in time for a
most _fearful_ tragedy."

"Tss; dear--_dear_" murmured Mrs. Bailey waiting with frowning calm
eagerness. Miriam hesitated. It would be a long difficult story to make
Mrs. Bailey see stupid commercial wealth. She would see wealthy
"people," a "gentleman" living in a large country house, and not
understand Mr. Green at all; but _Eve_, getting the bunch of keys from
the ironmonger's and writing to Bennett to find out about Rupert Street
... and the _detective_. She would have it in her mind like a novel and
never let it go. It would be a breach of confidence.... She paused,
not knowing what to do with her sudden animation. It was too late to get
back into being an impartial listener, on the verge of going away. She
had told everything, without the interesting details. Mrs. Bailey was
waiting for them. They were still safe. She might think it was an
illness or something about a relative. The only thing to do now was to
stay and work off the unexplained animation on anything Mrs. Bailey
might choose to say. "Well" said Mrs. Bailey presently, "to return to
our friend. What I say is, why doesn't she go to the clergy, in her own
parish?"

"Go on the parish, m'm."

"Not necessarily on the parish. The clergy's most helpful and
sympathetic. They might tell her of those who would help her."

"They might. But it's most awfully difficult. _Nobody_ knows what ought
to be done about these things."

"That is so. But there's a right and a wrong in everything. There's
plenty of people willing to help those that will help theirselves. But
that's very different to coming into a person's house to try and get
money out of strangers."

"I _say_."

"It is I _say_. I never felt so ashamed in my life."

"I _say_.... Did they tell you?"

"Mrs. Hurd came to me herself."

"Mrs. Hurd. Of course, it would be."

"My word. I _was_ wild. And them only just come into my house."

"Yes, of course; I _say_."

"Tellin' them she was _ill_."

"She is ill you know."

"There's some imagines theirselves ill. If she was anything like as ill
as I am she might have something to complain about."

"I think she's rather plucky. She doesn't want to give in. It's a kind
of illness that doesn't show much. I know her doctor. He's a Harley
Street man. _He_ says that her kind of disorder makes it absolutely
impossible for the patient to tell the truth. I don't believe that. It's
just one of those doctory things they all repeat."... What is truth
said jesting Pilate and did not wait for an answer. _Their_ idea of
truth--

"Well if she is ill why doesn't she act according?"

"Look _after_ herself a bit. Yes. That's what she wants to do. But not
give in."

"Quite so. That's a thing a person can understand. But that doesn't make
it right to come to private people and behave in the way she has done.
Strangers. I never met such conduct, nor heard of it."

"No."

"She's got relatives I suppose; or friends."

"Well, that's just it. I don't think she has. I suppose the truth is all
her friends are tired of helping her."

"Well, I'm not judging her there. There's none can be so cruel as
relatives, as _I_ know, my word."

"Yes."

"They'll turn from you when you're struggling to the utmost to help
yourself, going on ill, left with four young children, your husband cut
off and not a _penny_."

"Yes."

"I agree with her there. I owe all I have, under Providence, to my own
hands and the help coming from strangers I had no claim on. But why
doesn't she act open? That's what _I_ say and I know it. There's always
those ready to help you if you'll do your part. It's all take and no
give with some."

"Vampires. People _are_ extraordinary."

"You'd say so if you had this house to manage."

"I suppose so."

"You get your eyes open. With one and another."

"I'd no idea she'd even been talking to the Hurds."

"Talk? Well I don't mind telling you now she's gone."

"Well, she won't come back again. If she ever does Mrs. Bailey I hereby
refuse all responsibility. On your head be it if you take her in. _I_
can't keep her."

"Well, as I say, I'm free to tell you. They used to go upstairs into the
drawn-room, mornings, after breakfast. I could hear that woman's voice
going on and on. I was up and down the stairs. What's more she used to
stop dead the minute I came in."

"Well I am sorry you've had all this."

"I'm not blaming you, young lady."

"What about all the others?"

"Rodkin and Helsing and Gunner's out all day."

"Yes but the others? The Manns and the Irish journalist."

"She'd be clever to get anything out of any of _them_."

"I wonder she didn't try Mrs. Barrow. She's kind I'm sure and gullible."

"She's very kind no doubt in her way. Anyway she's not one of those who
live on a widow woman and pay nothing."

The old sense of the house was crumbling. To Mrs. Bailey it was _worry_
and things she could not talk about to anyone, and a few nice people
here and there. And all the time she was _polite_; as if she liked them
all, equally. And they were polite. Everyone was polite. And behind it
was all this. Shifts and secrets and strange characters. When they were
all together at Mrs. Bailey's dinner, they were all carrying things off,
politely. Perhaps already she regretted having sent away the lodgers.

"The doctors were nice people to have in the house."

"Wasn't they dear boys? _Very_ nice gentlemen. Canadians are the ones to
my mind, though I believe as much as any in standing by your own. But
you've got to consider your interests."

"Of course."

"That's why I mean to ad_ver_tiss. My word those Hurds are good friends
if you like. I couldn't tell you. The old man's put an advert for me in
the Canadian place in the city."

"Then you'll have a houseful of Canadians."

"That's what I _hope_. The more the better of their kind."

"We shall all be speaking Canadian."

"Well, since we're on the subject, Mrs. Hurd advises me to _go_ to
Canada. Says it's all work and no pay over here. Everybody expects too
much for too little."

How _could_ she rejoice in the idea of a house full of Canadians? All
the same. Canadian. It would change the house more and more. Mrs. Bailey
would not mind that. The house meant nothing to her just as it was with
its effect. She had to make it pay. If another house would pay better
she would just as soon have another house. "You wouldn't like to leave
London; there's no place like London." The Hurds thought everyone in the
house _selfish_, living on Mrs. Bailey's work, enjoying the house for
nothing, forgetting her. It was true ... uneasy in her presence....

                               CHAPTER XI

Miriam got up early the next morning and went to her window in her
night-gown. There was a thick August haze in the square. The air smelt
moist. She leaned out into the chill of it. Her body was full of sleep
and strength; all one strength from head to feet. She heard life in the
silence, and went through her getting up as quickly as possible,
listening all the time to the fresh silence.

She went downstairs feeling like a balloon on a string; her feet
touching the stairs lightly as if there were no weight in her body. At
the end of the long journey came the smiling familiar surprise of the
hall. The hall table was clear, a stretch of grey marble in the morning
light. The letters had been taken into the dining-room. There was
something, a package, on the far corner, a book package, with a note,
Silurian blue, _Eleanor_. Small straggly round handwriting, yes,
Eleanor's, _R. Rodkin, Esq_: _Ah._ Mr. _Rodkin_. How had she done it?
When? Carrying off a book. Pretending she had forgotten, and writing.
Sly cleverness. What a blessing she had gone.... Booming through her
uneasiness came a great voice from the dining-room. Through the misty
corridors of the _Dawn_ it bellowed. She went gladly in towards poetry.
Mrs. Bailey was presiding over an early breakfast. The Irishman, sitting
back mirthfully in his chair on the far side of the table and at his
side a big stout man with a bushy black beard, brilliant laughing eyes
staring at nothing from a flushed face. Mrs. Bailey was watching him
with a polite smile; he looked as though he were at supper; making the
room seem hot, obliterating the time of day. I expect you had a rough
crossing, she said politely. I _saw_ her, he bellowed flinging back his
head and roaring out words and laughter together. She walks in _Beauty_.
I saw her sandalled feet; upon the _Hills_.

                               PRINTED BY
                       WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
                           PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND

                          Transcriber's Notes

The original spelling and punctuation were mostly preserved. In
"Interim", Dorothy Richardson experimented with punctuation, in
particular leaving out many commas and quotation marks, in order to
promote "creative collaboration" with the reader. Therefore, punctuation
was mostly left unchanged, as was the varying usage of hyphens and
ellipses.

A few obvious typographical and formatting errors were silently
corrected. Further careful corrections, some after consulting other
editions, are listed here (before/after):

   [p. 66]:
   ... was no need to have brought in home. It was ...
   ... was no need to have brought it home. It was ...

   [p. 80]:
   ... Moskowski's Serenade sounded fearfully pathetic; ...
   ... Moszkowski's Serenade sounded fearfully pathetic; ...

   [p. 88]:
   ... Who were they afraid of shocking with their ...
   ... Whom were they afraid of shocking with their ...

   [p. 111]:
   ... and her difficulties remained.... One had told ...
   ... and her difficulties remained.... One had told it ...

   [p. 114]:
   ... lost in the thick turkey carpeting of the waiting-room ...
   ... lost in the thick Turkey carpeting of the waiting-room ...

   [p. 122]:
   ... himself, in every tone listening, in the very ...
   ... himself, in every one listening, in the very ...

   [p. 162]: (multiple cases)
   ... maliciously towards Mrs. Barlow were a hard ...
   ... maliciously towards Mrs. Barrow were a hard ...

   [p. 167]:
   ... liking and determined not to be reminded of ...
   ... liking it and determined not to be reminded of ...

   [p. 179]:
   ... welcome me inside again soon. Je me'en fiche. ...
   ... welcome me inside again soon. Je m'en fiche. ...

   [p. 186]:
   ... both battreurs des pavés, she thought; both ...
   ... both batteurs de pavé, she thought; both ...

   [p. 186]:
   ... elf untouched and always new, her old free ...
   ... self untouched and always new, her old free ...

   [p. 200]:
   ... an old gossip. Old men are worse gossips then ...
   ... an old gossip. Old men are worse gossips than ...

   [p. 205]:
   ... was unreal, as easy a dream. All about her were ...
   ... was unreal, as easy as a dream. All about her were ...

   [p. 221]:
   ... was hotel; Edwards daylight Family Hotel ... ...
   ... was a hotel; Edwards daylight Family Hotel ... ...

   [p. 226]:
   ... makes the whole day and adventure even if you're ...
   ... makes the whole day an adventure even if you're ...

   [p. 238]:
   ... "Have you ever been to one." ...
   ... "Have you ever been to one?" ...

   [p. 247]:
   ... to chose. That's the trouble. If you are liking ...
   ... to choose. That's the trouble. If you are liking ...

   [p. 248]:
   ... not think it wonderful ... ...
   ... not think it wonderful? ... ...

   [p. 253]:
   ... when you come. We'll read it, he sat smiling to ...
   ... when you come. We'll read it, he said smiling to ...

   [p. 257]:
   ... and brushed at her shirt. Miriam waited, ...
   ... and brushed at her skirt. Miriam waited, ...

   [p. 257]:
   ... "Well you know I've a great regard for youl ...
   ... "Well you know I've a great regard for you, ...

   [p. 263]:
   ... went indifferent to any grouped faces of either ...
   ... went indifferent to any grouped faces either ...

   [p. 266]:
   ... be as free and indiscreet as one choses.... ...
   ... be as free and indiscreet as one chooses.... ...

   [p. 279]:
   ... printed astericks between small groups of lines. ...
   ... printed asterisks between small groups of lines. ...

   [p. 287]:
   ... It she were not pressed she would say no ...
   ... If she were not pressed she would say no ...

   [p. 295]:
   ... "Rodkin and Helsing's and Gunners out all ...
   ... "Rodkin and Helsing and Gunner's out all ...