“Do it Gowry,” said Mr. Wilson … “a book” … he made his little sound behind his nose as he felt for the phrases that were to come after his next words … “a—er—book; about a lamppost. You ser,” he held up his minatory finger to keep off an onslaught and quench an eager monologue that began pouring from Miriam’s nearest neighbour, and went on in his high weak husky voice. The young men were quiet. For a few moments the red lady and Alma made bright conversation as if nothing were happening; but with a curious hard emptiness in their voices, like people rehearsing and secretly angry with each other. Then they were silent, sitting posed and attentive, with uneasy intelligent smiling faces; their costumes and carefully arranged hair useless on their hands. Mrs. Binkley did not suffer so much as Alma; her corsetless eager crouch gave her the appearance of intentness, her hair waved naturally, had tendrils and could be left to look after itself; her fresh easy strength was ready for the next opportunity. It was only something behind her face that belied her happy pose. Alma was waiting in some curious fixed singleness of tension; her responses hovered fixed about her mouth, waiting for expression, she sat fixed in a frozen suspension of deliberate amiability and approval, approval of a certain chosen set of things; approval which excluded everything else with derision … it was Alma’s old derision, fixed and arranged in some way by Mr. Wilson.
“There will be books—with all that cut out—him and her—all that sort of thing. The books of the future will be clear of all that.”
Miriam sat so enclosed in her unarmed struggle with the new definition of a book that the entry of the newcomers left her unembarrassed. Two rotund ruddy men in mud-spotted tweeds, both fair, one with a tuft like a cockatoo standing straight up from his forehead above a smooth pink face, the other older than anybody in the room, with a shaggy head and a small pointed beard. They came in talking aloud and stumped about the room, making their greetings. Miriam bowed twice and twice received a sturdy handclasp and the kindly gleam of blue eyes, one pair large, mild and owl-like behind glasses; the other fierce and glinting, a shaft of whimsical blue light. The second pair of eyes surely would not agree with what Mr. Wilson had been saying. But their coming in had broken a charm; the overwhelming charm of the way he put things; so that even while you hated what he was saying and his way of stating things as if they were the final gospel and no one else in the world knew anything at all, you wanted him to go on; only to go on and to keep on going on. It was wrong somehow; he was all wrong; “though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels”; it was wrong and somehow wicked; but it caught you, it had caught Alma and all these people; and in a sense he despised them all, and was talking to something else; the thing he knew; the secret that made him so strong, even with his weak voice and weak mouth; strong and fascinating. It was wrong to be here; it would be wrong to come again; but there was nothing like it anywhere else; no other such group of things; and thought and knowledge of things. More must be heard. It would be impossible not to risk everything to hear more.
Alma ordered fresh tea; Mr. Wilson and the husband and the two new men were standing about. The elder man was describing in a large shouting voice a new mantelpiece—a Tudor mantelpiece. What was a Tudor mantelpiece? … to buy a house to put round it. What a clever idea. … Little Mr. Wilson seemed to be listening; he squealed amendments of the jests between the big man’s boomings … buy a town to put round it. … What a lovely idea … buy a nation to put round it … there was a burst of guffaws. Mr. Wilson’s face was crimson; his eyes appeared to be full of tears. The big man went on. Mrs. Binkley kept uttering deep reedy caressing laughs. Two of the young men were leaning forward talking eagerly with bent heads. Miriam’s neighbour sat upright with his hands on his knees, his eyes glaring as if … as if he were just going to jump out of his skin. Hidden by the increased stir made by the reentry of the maid, and encouraged by the extraordinary clamour of hilarious voices Miriam ventured to ask him if he would perform an act of charity by allowing her to rob him of one of his cigarettes. She liked her unrecognisable voice. It was pitched deep, but strong; a little like Mrs. Binkley’s. The young man started and turned eagerly towards her, stammering and muttering and fumbling about his person. “I swear,” he brought out, “I could cut my throat … my
