“Isn’t it verray remarkable, my dear Miriam, that such a singularly tall man as Mr. Spiffkins should be a radical?”
“Don’t you, my dear Miriam, consider it highly alarming that rain falls down instead of up?”
She listened. Here, perhaps, as the Bannermans now appeared in her mind for the first time since she left home, would be light upon that long-forgotten mystery. But a question intruded. Why, since their voices followed the same pattern of sound and bore the same suggestion of being at loggerheads with the social order, why had not the Lycurgans recalled the Bannerman girls? Certainly if they were alive and in London, all three were now active members of the Lycurgan society; the amused superiority in their voices added to the Lycurgan tide of amused superiority to everything on earth.
Yet these women who had brought them back, though they had the Lycurgan voice, had nothing of the crisp cocksureness of the socialist intelligentsia. They were unanimously belabouring someone, hitting out right and left, but within their expressive voices, moulding their lively scorn, animating the unvarying tone-shape of the intelligentsia-in-argument, was sorrow.
The coming of their tea brought a pause. With the ceasing of their voices warmth withdrew from the sound of the room, and returned at the first phrase sounding together with the cheerful gush of tea hurriedly poured.
“Well, I think it’s just simply incomprehensible.”
Miriam knew it was not. She half turned, strangely sure that they would welcome her and quite simply state a case. They were not a clique. Something in their voices related them to everybody in the world. They had the selflessness of those who keep an eye everywhere, without discrimination of persons. They would be at once interested, even in herself, and quite blind. She turned and found a group of three, three small women with one face; a face she knew well at Lycurgan meetings and liked, but always with a queer thrill of uncertainty. It was vital, intimately intelligent, and yet alien, seeming at once to light up and to darken its surroundings.
The club, she thought as she turned gladly back to the loneliness created by Miss Holland’s surrounded state, was going to get hold of her in a way of which she had never dreamed, since at the outset it had brought her to the edge of the whirlpool of people with whom this dark face was in her mind so richly associated. Set in a row of Lycurgan faces, all screened, more or less, in the English way and not different, in silence, from a row of Primrose League faces, this one face would stand out, a pale, bony oval set with crisp hair; and eyes, under dark brows, richly despairingly intent. The moment the lecture was over it would be visible, now here now there, and always in eager speech.
Small wonder, since it turned out to be three, that she was always seeing it.
“Now Mrs. Wilson is charming,” said one. “A far more charming personality than he.”
However indiscreet, the remark was illuminating. Set up thus on a placard she need have no hesitation in carrying it away, for Hypo. But she must acknowledge the receipt of it. Turning full round, she met a vivid face that boldly smiled, and, smiling, was drowned in a vivid flush. Miriam smiled too, basking for a moment in the charm, glowing so brightly in its role of a prolonged haunting impression come suddenly to life at her elbow. But so formidably. In place of one figure a whole group, a multiplicity of attraction. She turned away to find the white figures had disappeared.
Miss Holland sat, flushed with talk, quietly but quite evidently summoning composure; as nearly flustered as it was possible for her to be.
“How tall those women are,” said Miriam, still intent on the group behind.
“I did not introduce them,” replied Miss Holland, busying herself, with downcast eyes, amongst the flowered teacups. “I—well—I thought—” her deprecating tone collapsed into a murmur and rose again, recovering. “Yes, they are tall, both mother and daughter.”
“Astounding. I thought they were sisters.”
“Their name is Wheeler. It is a most interesting story.”
Nothing about Americans could be really interesting. But Miss Holland, without looking up, was launched upon her narrative.
“They are from San Antonio in Texas. The child Estella is just fifteen years of age. Yes, it is remarkable. A warmer clime, I suppose. Still it is very remarkable. Her grandmother was Spanish. And that perhaps may account for her exceptional temperament. She is a musician. The cello. They have travelled to London for her training. It seems that her teachers at home were obliged to confess they could do nothing further for her.”
“Why not Germany?”
“Well, that is just it. The reason for their coming to London is the strangest part of the story. It seems that there is a Pole, a celebrated cellist. The child heard him once, years ago, in New York, and has been saying ever since that he is the only man in the world who can teach her. He, it appears, is giving performances in London this winter. So they have come. The child thinks of nothing else. For the moment she is at the Philharmonic Academy. She dislikes it. I am sincerely sorry for her mother. She is most courageous; and so wise. Insists on physical culture. Very wise. Skipping and so on. At a gymnasium. The great trouble at the moment is that it now appears that the Pole takes no pupils. Also that they are not too well off. Estella, however, is determined to see him.”
“Has she given concerts?”
“Not so far. But the Academy wishes to bring
