“Why not write an article about a lamppost?” said one of the young men suddenly in a gruff voice in answer to a gradually growing murmur of communications from one of his companions. Miriam breathed easier air. The shameful irritating tension was over. It was as if fresh wonderful life-giving things that were hovering in the room, driven back into corners, pressing up and away against the angles of the ceiling and about the window-door behind the young men and against the faraway door of the room, came back, flooding all the spaces of the room. Mr. Wilson moved in his chair, using his handkerchief towards the young men with an eye on the speaker. “Or a whole book,” murmured the young man farthest from Miriam in an eager cockney voice. The two young men were speaking towards Mr. Wilson, obviously trying to draw him in, bringing along one of his topics; something that had been discussed here before. There would be talk, men’s talk, argument and showing off; but there would be something alive in the room. In the conflict there would be ideas, wrong ideas, men taking sides, both right and both wrong; men showing off; but wanting with all their wrongness to get at something. Perhaps somebody would say something. She regretted her shy refusal of a cigarette from Mr. Wilson’s large full box. It stood open now by the side of the tea-tray. He would not offer it again. Cigarettes and talk. … What would Mr. Hancock think? “People do not meet together for conversation, nowadays.” … There was going to be conversation, literary conversation and she was going to hear it … be in it. Clever literary people trying to say things well; of course they were all literary; they were all the same set, knowing each other, all calling Mr. Wilson “Hypo”; talk about books was the usual Saturday afternoon thing here; and she was in it and would be able to be in it again, any week. It was miraculous. All these people were special people, emancipated people. Probably they all wrote, except the women. There were too many women. Somehow or other she must get a cigarette. Life, suddenly full of new things made her bold. Presently, when the conversation was general she would beg one of the young man at her side. Mr. Wilson would not turn to her again. She had failed twice already in relation to him; but after her lame refusal of the cigarette which he had accepted instantly and sat down with, he had glanced sharply at her in a curious personal way, noticing the little flat square of white collarette—the knot of violets upon it, the long-sleeved black nun’s-veiling blouse, the long skirt of her old silkette evening dress. These items had made her sick with anxiety in their separate poverty as she put them on for the visit; but his eyes seemed to draw them all together. Perhaps there in the dark corner they made a sort of whole. She rejoiced gratefully in the memory of Mag’s factory girl, in her own idea of having the sleeves gauged at the wrists in defiance of fashion, to make frills extending so as partly to cover her large hands; over the suddenly realised possibility of wearing the silkette skirt as a day skirt. She must remain in the corner, not moving, all the afternoon. If she moved in the room the bright light would show the scrappiness of her clothes. In the evening it would be all right. She sat back in her corner, happy, and forgetful. She had not had so much tea as she wanted. She had refused the cigarette against her will. Now she was alive. These weak things would not happen again, and next time she would bring her own cigarettes. To take out a cigarette and light it here, at home amongst her own people. These were her people. There was something here in the exciting air that she did not understand; something that was going to tax her more than she had ever been taxed before. She had found her way to it through her wanderings; it had come; it was her due. It corresponded to something in herself, shapeless and inexpressible; but there. She knew it by herself, sitting in her corner; her own people would know it, if they could see her here; but no one here would find it out. Everyone here was doing something; or the wife of somebody who did something. They were like a sort of secret society … all agreed about
