“You are late.”
“Yes I am fear‑fully late.”
“Why are you late Frederika Elizabeth von Bohlen?”
The powerful rounded square figure was in the leather armchair opposite the blaze, strongly moulded brown knickered black stockinged legs comfortably crossed stuck firmly out between the heavy soft folds of a grey flannel dressing gown. The shoes had gone, grey woollen bedroom slippers blurred all but the shapely small ankles. Mag was lighting another cigarette, von Bohlen was not doing needlework, the room settled suddenly to its best rich exciting blur.
“Tonight I must smoke or die.”
“Must you, my dear.”
“Why.”
“To-nate—a, ay must smoke—a, or daye.”
“Es ist bestimmt, in Gottes Rath.”
“Tell us what you think of the Pierson, child.”
“She was awfully nice. Is it your landlady?”
“Yes—isn’t she nice? We think she’s extraordinary—all things considered. You know we hadn’t the least idea what she was when we came here.”
“What is she?”
“Well—er—you embarrass me, child, how shall we put it to her, Jan?”
“D’you mean to say she’s improper?”
“Yes—she’s improper. We hadn’t the faintest notion of it when we came.”
“How extraordinary.”
“It is extraordinary. We’re living in an improper house—the whole street’s improper we’re discovering.”
“How absolutely awful.”
“Now we know why Mother Cosway hinted when we left her to come here that we wanted to be free for devil’s mirth.”
“How did you find out?”
“Henriette told us; you see she works for the Pierson.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Well—she told us.”
“Six”—laughed Mag, quoting towards Jan.
“Six,” trumpeted Jan, “and if not six, seven.”
They both laughed.
“In one evening,” trumpeted Jan.
“I say are you going to leave?” The thought of the improper street was terrible and horrible; but they might go right away to some other part of London. Mag answered instantly but the interval had seemed long and Miriam was cold with anxiety.
“No; we don’t see why we should.”
Miriam gazed dumbly from one to the other, finding herself admiring and wondering more than ever at their independence and strength.
“You see the woman’s so absolutely self-respecting.”
“Much more so than we are!”
“Out of doors she’s a model of decorum and good style.”
“We’re ashamed when we meet her.”
“We are. We skip into the gutter.”
“We babble and slink!”
“Indoors she’s a perfect landlady. She’s been awfully good to us.”
“A perfect brick!”
“She doesn’t drink; she’s most exquisitely clean. There’s nothing whatever to—to indicate the er—nature of her profession.”
“Except that she sits at the window.”
“But she does not tire her hair and look forth.”
“Or fifth.”
“Fool.”
Miriam giggled.
“Really Miriam she is rather wonderful you know. We like her.”
“Henriette is devoted to her.”
“And so apparently is her husband.”
“Her husband?”
“Yes—she has a husband—he appears at rare intervals—and a little girl at boarding school. She goes to see her but the child never comes here. She tells us quite frankly that she wants to keep her out of harm’s way.”
“How amazing!”
“Yes, she’s extraordinary. She’s Eurasian. She was born in India.”
“That accounts for a good deal. Eurasians are awful; they’ve got all the faults of both sides.”
“East is East and West is West and never the two shall meet.”
“Well, we like her.”
“So we have decided to ignore her little peccadilloes.”
“I don’t see that it’s our business. Frankly I can’t see that it has anything whatever to do with us. Do you?”
“Well I don’t know; I don’t suppose it has really.”
“What would you do in our place?”
“I don’t know … I don’t believe I should have found out.”
“I don’t believe you would; but if you had?”
“I think I should have been awfully scared.”
“You would have been afraid that the sixth.”
“Or the seventh.”
“Might have wandered upstairs.”
“No; I mean the whole idea.”
“Oh; the idea. …”
“London, my dear Miriam, is full of ideas.”
“I will go and get the suppe.”
Jan rose; her bright head and grey shoulders went up above the lamplight, darkening to steady massive outlines, strongly moving as she padded and fluttered briskly out of the room.
The rich blur of the room free of the troubling talk and the swift conversational movements of the two, lifted and was touched with a faint grey, a suggestion of dawn or twilight, as if coming from the hidden windows. Mag sat motionless in her chair, gazing into the fire.
“… Wise and happy infant, I want to ask your opinion.”
Miriam roused herself and glanced steadily across. The outlines of things grew sharp. She could imagine the room in daylight and felt a faint sharp sinking; hungry.
“I’m going to state you a case. I think you have an extraordinarily sharp sense of right and wrong.”
“Oh no.”
“You have an extraordinarily sharp sense of right and wrong. Imagine a woman. Can you imagine a woman?”
“Go on.”
“Imagine a woman engaged to a man. Imagine her allowing—another man—to kiss her.”
Miriam sat thinking. She imagined the two, the snatched caress, the other man alone and unconscious.
“Would you call that treachery to the other person?”
“It would depend upon which she liked best.”
“That’s just the difficulty.”
“Oh. That’s awful.”
“Don’t you think a kiss, just a kiss—might be—well—neither here nor there.”
“Well, if it’s nothing, there’s nothing in the whole thing. If there is anything—you can’t talk about just kisses.”
“Dreadful Miriam.”
“Do you believe in blunted sensibilities?” How funny that Mag should have led up to that new phrase … but this was a case.
“You mean—”
“Whether if a sensibility is blunted it can ever grow sharp again.”
“No. I suppose that’s it. How can it?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. It’s a perfectly awful idea, I think.”
“It is awful—because we are all blunting our sensibilities all the time—are we not?”
“That’s just it—whether we ought.”
“Does one always know?”
“Don’t you think so? There’s a feeling. Yes I think one always knows.”
“Suppe, children.”
Miriam took her bowl with eager embarrassment … the sugar-basin, the pudding basin and the slop bowl together on a tray, the quickly produced soup—the wonderful rich life the girls
