alone with that mystery shut in and hidden every day the whole of her London time behind its closed frosted doors and forcing her now to admit that there was food there and she must go in or have the knowledge of being starved through fear. Her thoughts flashed painfully across a frosted door long ago in Baker Street and she saw the angry handsome face of the waiter who had shouted roll and butter and whisked away from the table the twisted cone of serviette and the knives and forks. That was in the middle of the day. It would be worse at night. Perhaps they would even refuse to serve her. Perhaps it was impossible to go into a restaurant late at night alone. She was coming back. There was nothing to be seen behind the steamy panes on either side of the door but plants standing on oil cloth mats. Behind them was again frosted glass. It was not so grand as Baker Street. There was no menu in a large brass frame with Schweppe’s at the top. She pushed open the glass door and was confronted by another glass door blankly frosted all over. Why were they so secret? Inside the second door she found herself at the beginning of a long aisle of linoleum. On either side people were dotted here and there on short velvet sofa seats behind marble topped tables. In the close air there was a strong smell made up of all kinds of meat dishes. A waiter flicking the crumbs from a table glanced sharply round at her and went off down the room. He had seen the shifts and miseries that haunted all her doings. They were apparent in the very hang of her cloak. She could not first swing down the restaurant making it wave for joy as it did when she walked across Trafalgar Square in the dark and then order a roll and butter. After this it would never wave for joy again. A short compact bald man in a white apron was hurrying down the aisle, towards
her. He stopped just in front of her and stood bowing and indicating a near empty table with his short arm and stood silently hovering while she dragged herself into place on the velvet sofa. The waiter rushing up with a menu was gently waved away and the little man stood over the side of the table blocking out the fuller end of the restaurant. Hardly able to speak for the beating of her heart she looked up into a little firm round pallid face with a small snub nose and curious pale waxy blue eyes and said furiously oh please just a roll and butter and a cup of cocoa. The little man bowed low with a beaming face and went gently away. Miriam watched him go down the aisle bowing here and there right and left. The hovering waiter came forward questioningly to meet him and was again waved aside and she presently saw the little man at a speaking tube and heard him sing in a soft smooth high monotone, un-sho-co-lat. He brought her things and arranged them carefully about her and brought her an Illustrated London News from another table. She sipped and munched and looked at all the pictures. The people in the pictures were real people. She imagined them moving and talking in all manner of circumstances and suffered their characteristics gently, feeling as if someone were there gently half-reproachfully holding her hands tied behind her back. The waiter roamed up and down the aisle. People came in, sometimes two or three at a time. The little man was sitting writing with a stern bent face at a little table at the far end of the restaurant just in front of a marble counter holding huge urns and glass dishes piled with buns and slices of cake. He did not move again until she rose to go when he came once more hurrying down the aisle. Her bill was sixpence and he took the coin with a bow and waited while she extricated herself from the clinging velvet, and held the door wide for her to pass out. Good evening thank you very much she murmured hoping that he heard, in response to his polite farewell. She wandered slowly home through the drizzling rain warmed and fed and with a glow at her heart. Inside those frightful frosted doors was a home, a bit of her own London home.
The hall gas was out. The dining-room door was ajar showing a faint light and light was coming from the little room at the end of the passage. Miriam cautiously pushed open the dining-room door. Mrs. Bailey was sitting alone poised socially in a low armchair by the fire with the gas turned low. Miriam came dutifully forward in response to the entrancement of her smile and stood on the hearthrug enwrapped in her evening, invaded by the sense of beginning it anew with Mrs. Bailey. When had she seen Mrs. Bailey last? She could tell her now about Eve in great confidential detail and explain that she could not at present afford to come to Tansley Street. That would be a great sociable conversation and the engagement with Mr. Bowdoin would remain untouched. She stood in a glow of eloquence. Mrs. Bailey preened and bridled and made little cheerful affectionate remarks and waited silent a moment before asking if it rained. Miriam forgot Eve and gathered herself together for some tremendous communication. Was it raining? She glanced at the outside London world and was lost in interchanging scenes, her mind split up, pressing several ways at once. Mrs. Bailey saw all these scenes and felt and understood them exactly as she did. There was no need to answer the question. She glanced stonily towards her and saw the downcast held-in embarrassment of her waiting form. In a dry professional official voice she said gazing
