Interim

some other woman from Tennyson. It was glorious to have a real, simple homage coming from a man who was no simpleton, coming simple, strong and kindly from Canada to put you in a shrine.⁠ ⁠… I have always liked those old-fashioned stories because I have always known they were true. They have lived on in Canada. Canadian men have kept something that Englishmen are losing. She turned the pages of her notebook and came upon the scrap crossed through by Mr. Mendizabal. She read the words through forcing them to accept a superficial meaning. Disturbance about ideas would destroy the perfect serenity that was demanded of her. Be good sweet maid and let who will be clever. Easy enough if one were perpetually sustained by a strong and adoring hand. Perhaps more difficult really to be good than to be clever. Perhaps there were things in this strong man that were not perfectly good and serene. He exacted his own serenity by sheer force; that was why he worshipped and looked for natural serenity.⁠ ⁠… Presently she stirred from her engrossment and looked across at him as if only just aware of his presence. He did not meet her look but a light came on his face and he raised his head and turned towards the light to aid her observation. The things that are beginning to be called silly futile romances are true. Here is the strong silent man who does not want to talk and grin.⁠ ⁠… He would love laughter. Freed from worries and sustained by him one could laugh all one’s laughter out and dance and sing through life to a happy sunsetting.⁠ ⁠… Was he religious? She found she had risen to her feet with decision and began collecting her papers in confusion as if she had suddenly made a great clamour. Dr. Heber rose at once and with some quiet murmuring remark went away from the room. Miriam felt she must get into the open and go far on and on and on. Going upstairs through the house and into her room for her outdoor things she found her own secret belongings more her own. In the life she shyly glanced at, out away somewhere in the bright blaze of Canadian sunshine her own secret belongings would be more her own. That was one of the secrets of the sheltered life⁠ ⁠… one of the things behind the smiles of the sheltered women; their own secret certainties intensified because they were surrounded; perhaps in Canada men respected the secret certainties of women which they could never share. With your feet on that firm ground what would it matter how life went on and on? There was someone in the hall. Mr. Mendizabal in a funny little short overcoat.

“You go out Miss?” he said cheerfully.

“I’m going for a walk,” she said eagerly, her eyes on the clear grey and black of the hat he was taking from the hall stand.

“I too go for a walk” he murmured cramming the soft hat on to his resisting hair and opening the door for her.

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This was one of those mild February days; it is a mistake to imagine that the winter is gone; but it is gone in your mind; you can see ahead two summers and only one winter. I go with you was meant as a question.⁠ ⁠… It was on the tip of her tongue to turn and say you should have said shall I go with you; she was rebuked by a glimpse of Mr. Mendizabal swinging sturdily unconsciously along on the gutter side of the narrow width of pavement, swinging his stick, the strong modelling of his white face unconscious under his strong black hair and the jaunty sweep of his black banded grey hat. “Jaunty and debonair”; but without a touch of weakness. What a lovely mild evening; extraordinary for the time of year; he would be furious at being interrupted for that, thinking of her as a stiff formal institutrice and shouting something ironic that would bring the world about their ears. Quel beau temps; that was it.

“Quel beau temps.” They had reached the Gower Street curb and stood waiting to plunge through the passing traffic.

“Une soirée superbe mademoiselle” shouted Mr. Mendizabal in a smooth flattened squeal as they crossed side by side; “hah-eh!” he squealed pushing her off to dart clear of a hansom and away to the opposite curb. Miriam pulled back just in time, receiving the angry yell of the driver full in her upturned face. Mr. Mendizabal was waiting unconcernedly outside the chemist’s, singing, with French words. She disposed hastily of the incident, eager to be walking on through the darkness towards the mingled darkness and gold of the coming streets. They went along past the grey heights of University College Hospital, separate creatures of mysteriously different races; she expected that when they reached the light she would find herself alone⁠—and swung with one accord round into the brilliance of the Tottenham Court Road; the tide of light and sound raising them into a companionship that needed no bending into shapes of conversation. It was something to him and it was something to her, and they threaded their way together, meeting and separating and rejoining, unanimous and apart. We are both batteurs de pavé, she thought; both people who must be free to be nothing; saying to everything je m’en fiche⁠ ⁠… the hushed happiness that had begun in the dining-room half an hour ago seized her again suddenly, sending her forward almost on tiptoe. It was securely there; the vista it opened growing in beauty as she walked. There was some source of light within her, something that was ready to spread out all round her and ahead and flow over the past. It confirmed scenes she had read and wondered at and cherished, seeking in vain in the world for women who were like the women described in them. She understood what women