conjured up a scene of herself on a camel’s back, in the desert, while Ralph commanded a whole tribe of natives.
“That is what you can do,” she went on, moving on to the next statue. “You always make people do what you want.”
A glow spread over her spirit, and filled her eyes with brightness. Nevertheless, before she left the Museum she was very far from saying, even in the privacy of her own mind, “I am in love with you,” and that sentence might very well never have framed itself. She was, indeed, rather annoyed with herself for having allowed such an ill-considered breach of her reserve, weakening her powers of resistance, she felt, should this impulse return again. For, as she walked along the street to her office, the force of all her customary objections to being in love with any one overcame her. She did not want to marry at all. It seemed to her that there was something amateurish in bringing love into touch with a perfectly straightforward friendship, such as hers was with Ralph, which, for two years now, had based itself upon common interests in impersonal topics, such as the housing of the poor, or the taxation of land values.
But the afternoon spirit differed intrinsically from the morning spirit. Mary found herself watching the flight of a bird, or making drawings of the branches of the plane-trees upon her blotting-paper. People came in to see Mr. Clacton on business, and a seductive smell of cigarette smoke issued from his room. Mrs. Seal wandered about with newspaper cuttings, which seemed to her either “quite splendid” or “really too bad for words.” She used to paste these into books, or send them to her friends, having first drawn a broad bar in blue pencil down the margin, a proceeding which signified equally and indistinguishably the depths of her reprobation or the heights of her approval.
About four o’clock on that same afternoon Katharine Hilbery was walking up Kingsway. The question of tea presented itself. The street lamps were being lit already, and as she stood still for a moment beneath one of them, she tried to think of some neighboring drawing-room where there would be firelight and talk congenial to her mood. That mood, owing to the spinning traffic and the evening veil of unreality, was ill-adapted to her home surroundings. Perhaps, on the whole, a shop was the best place in which to preserve this queer sense of heightened existence. At the same time she wished to talk. Remembering Mary Datchet and her repeated invitations, she crossed the road, turned into Russell Square, and peered about, seeking for numbers with a sense of adventure that was out of all proportion to the deed itself. She found herself in a dimly lighted hall, unguarded by a porter, and pushed open the first swing door. But the office-boy had never heard of Miss Datchet. Did she belong to the S.R.F.R.? Katharine shook her head with a smile of dismay. A voice from within shouted, “No. The S.G.S. – top floor.”
Katharine mounted past innumerable glass doors, with initials on them, and became steadily more and more doubtful of the wisdom of her venture. At the top she paused for a moment to breathe and collect herself. She heard the typewriter and formal professional voices inside, not belonging, she thought, to any one she had ever spoken to. She touched the bell, and the door was opened almost immediately by Mary herself. Her face had to change its expression entirely when she saw Katharine.
“You!” she exclaimed. “We thought you were the printer.” Still holding the door open, she called back, “No, Mr. Clacton, it’s not Penningtons. I should ring them up again – double three double eight, Central. Well, this is a surprise. Come in,” she added. “You’re just in time for tea.”
The light of relief shone in Mary’s eyes. The boredom of the afternoon was dissipated at once, and she was glad that Katharine had found them in a momentary press of activity, owing to the failure of the printer to send back certain proofs.
The unshaded electric light shining upon the table covered with papers dazed Katharine for a moment. After the confusion of her twilight walk, and her random thoughts, life in this small room appeared extremely concentrated and bright. She turned instinctively to look out of the window, which was uncurtained, but Mary immediately recalled her.
“It was very clever of you to find your way,” she said, and Katharine wondered, as she stood there, feeling, for the moment, entirely detached and unabsorbed, why she had come. She looked, indeed, to Mary’s eyes strangely out of place in the office. Her figure in the long cloak, which took deep folds, and her face, which was composed into a mask of sensitive apprehension, disturbed Mary for a moment with a sense of the presence of some one who was of another world, and, therefore, subversive of her world. She became immediately anxious that Katharine should be impressed by the importance of her world, and hoped that neither Mrs. Seal nor Mr. Clacton would appear until the impression of importance had been received. But in this she was disappointed. Mrs. Seal burst into the room holding a kettle in her hand, which she set upon the stove, and then, with inefficient haste, she set light to the gas, which flared up, exploded, and went out.
“Always the way, always the way,” she muttered. “Kit Markham is the only person who knows how to deal with the thing.”
Mary had to go to her help, and together they spread the table, and apologized for the disparity between the cups and the plainness of the food.
“If we had known Miss Hilbery was coming, we should have bought a cake,” said Mary, upon which Mrs. Seal looked at Katharine for the first time, suspiciously, because she was a person who needed cake.
Here Mr. Clacton opened the door, and came in, holding a typewritten letter in his hand, which he was reading aloud.
“Salford’s affiliated,” he said.
“Well done, Salford!” Mrs. Seal exclaimed enthusiastically, thumping the teapot which she held upon the table, in token of applause.
“Yes, these provincial centers seem to be coming into line at last,” said Mr. Clacton, and then Mary introduced him to Miss Hilbery, and he asked her, in a very formal manner, if she were interested “in our work.”
“And the proofs still not come?” said Mrs. Seal, putting both her elbows on the table, and propping her chin on her hands, as Mary began to pour out tea. “It’s too bad – too bad. At this rate we shall miss the country post. Which reminds me, Mr. Clacton, don’t you think we should circularize the provinces with Partridge’s last speech? What? You’ve not read it? Oh, it’s the best thing they’ve had in the House this Session. Even the Prime Minister – ”
But Mary cut her short.
“We don’t allow shop at tea, Sally,” she said firmly. “We fine her a penny each time she forgets, and the fines go to buying a plum cake,” she explained, seeking to draw Katharine into the community. She had given up all hope of impressing her.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Mrs. Seal apologized. “It’s my misfortune to be an enthusiast,” she said, turning to Katharine. “My father’s daughter could hardly be anything else. I think I’ve been on as many committees as most people. Waifs and Strays, Rescue Work, Church Work, C. O. S. – local branch – besides the usual civic duties which fall to one as a householder. But I’ve given them all up for our work here, and I don’t regret it for a second,” she added. “This is the root question, I feel; until women have votes – ”
“It’ll be sixpence, at least, Sally,” said Mary, bringing her fist down on the table. “And we’re all sick to death of women and their votes.”
Mrs. Seal looked for a moment as though she could hardly believe her ears, and made a deprecating “tut-tut-tut” in her throat, looking alternately at Katharine and Mary, and shaking her head as she did so. Then she remarked, rather confidentially to Katharine, with a little nod in Mary’s direction:
“She’s doing more for the cause than any of us. She’s giving her youth – for, alas! when I was young there were domestic circumstances – ” she sighed, and stopped short.
Mr. Clacton hastily reverted to the joke about luncheon, and explained how Mrs. Seal fed on a bag of biscuits under the trees, whatever the weather might be, rather, Katharine thought, as though Mrs. Seal were a pet dog who had convenient tricks.
“Yes, I took my little bag into the square,” said Mrs. Seal, with the self-conscious guilt of a child owning some fault to its elders. “It was really very sustaining, and the bare boughs