What did she want? She could not possibly fail to see that Mr. Hancock was telling her that he could see through her social insincerities. It was dreadful to find that even here there were social insincerities. She was like a busy ambassador for things that belonged somewhere else and that he was laughing at in an indulgent, deprecating way that must make her blaze with an anger that she did not show. Looking at her as her eyes and mouth made and fired their busy sentences, Miriam suddenly felt that it would be easy to deal with her, take her into a corner and talk about German things, food and love affairs and poetry and music. But she would always be breaking away to make a determined intrusion on somebody she knew. She could not really know any English person. What was she doing, bearing herself so easily in the inner circle of English science? Treating people as if she knew all about them and they were all alike. How surprised she must often be, and puzzled.
“That was Miss Teresa Szigmondy,” said Mr. Hancock, reproducing his amused smile as they took their seats in the dark theatre.
“Is she German?”
“Well … I think, as a matter of fact, she’s part Austro-Hungarian and part—well, Hebrew.” A Jewess … Miriam left her surroundings, pondering over a sudden little thread of memory. An eager, very bright-eyed, curiously dimpling schoolgirl face peering into hers, and a whispering voice—“D’you know why we don’t go down to prayers? ’Cos we’re Jews”—they had always been late; fresh faced and shiny haired and untidy and late and clever in a strange brisk way and talkative and easy and popular with the teachers. … Their guttural voices ringing out about the stairs and passages, deep and loud and stronger than any of the voices of the other girls. The Hyamson girls—they had been foreigners, like the Siggs and the de Bevers, but different … what was the difference in a Jew? Mr. Hancock seemed to think it was a sort of disgraceful joke … what was it? Max Sonnenheim had been a Jew, of course, the same voice. Banbury Park “full of Jews” … the Brooms said that in patient contemptuous voices. But what was it? What did everybody mean about them?
“Is she scientific?”
“She seems to be interested in science,” smiled Mr. Hancock.
“How funny of her to ask me to go to tea with her just because you told her I knew German.”
“Well, you go; if you’re interested in seeing notabilities you’ll meet all kinds of wonderful people at her house. She knows everybody. She’s the niece of a great Hungarian poet. I believe he’s to be seen there sometimes. They’re all coming in now.” Mr. Hancock named the great names of science one by one as the shyly gentle and the pompously gentle little old men ambled and marched into the well of the theatre and took their seats in a circle round the central green table.
“There’s a pretty lady,” said Mr. Hancock, conversationally, just as the light was lowered. Miriam glanced across the half circle of faintly shining faces and saw an effect, a smoothly coiffured head and smooth neck and shoulders draped by a low deep circular flounce of lace rising from the gloom of a dark dress, sweep in through a side door bending and swaying—“or a pretty dress at any rate”—and sat through the first minutes of the lecture, recalling the bearing and manner of the figure, with sad fierce bitterness. Mr. Hancock admired “feminine” women … or at any rate he was bored by her own heavy silence and driven into random speech by the sudden dip and sweep of the lace appearing in the light of the doorway. He was surprised himself by his sudden speech and half corrected it … “or a pretty dress.” … But anyhow he, even he, was one of those men who do not know that an effect like that was just an effect, a deliberate “charming” feminine effect. But if he did not know that, did not know that it was a trick and the whole advertising manner, the delicate, plunging fall of the feet down the steps—“I am late; look how nicely and quietly I am doing it; look at me being late and apologetic and interested”—out of place in the circumstances; then what was he doing here at all? Did he want science or would he really rather be in a drawing room with “pretty ladies” advertising effects and being “arch” in a polite, dignified, ladylike manner? How dingy and dull and unromantic and unfeminine he must find her. She sat in a lively misery, following the whirling circle of thoughts round and round, stabbed by their dull thorns, and trying to drag her pain-darkened mind to meet the claim of the platform, where, in a square of clear light, a little figure stood talking eagerly and quietly in careful slow English. Presently the voice on the platform won her—clear and with its curious, even, unaccented rat-tat-tat flowing and modulated with pure passion, the thrill of truth and revelation running alive and life-giving through every word. That, at least, she was
