There was a carriage at the door. West-end people, after late nights, managing to keep nine o’clock appointments—in a north wind. Miriam pressed the bell urgently. The scrubbed chalky mosaic and the busy bright brass plate reproached her for her lateness during the long moment before the door was opened.... It must be someone for Mr. Orly; an appointment made since last night; that was the worst of his living in the house. He was in his surgery now, with the patient. The nine-fifteen patient would come almost at once. He would discover that his charts were not out before there was any chance of getting at his appointment book.... As the great door swung open she saw Mr. Hancock turn the corner of the street walking very rapidly before the north wind.... Mr. Orly’s voice was sounding impatiently from the back of the hall.... “Where’s Miss Hends.... Oh—here y’are Miss Hends, I say call up Chalk for me will ya, get him to come at once, I’ve got the patient waiting.” His huge frock-coated form swung round into his surgery without waiting for an answer. Miriam scurried through the hall past Mr. Leyton’s open surgery door and into her room. Mr. Leyton plunged out of his room as she was flinging down her things and came in briskly. “Morning, Pater got a gas case?”

“Mm”; said Miriam. “I’ve got to call up Chalk and I haven’t a second to do it.”

“Why Chalk?”

“Oh I don’t know. He said Chalk” said Miriam angrily, seizing the directory. “I’ll call him up if you like.”

“You are a saint. Tell him to come at once—sooner,” said Miriam dabbing at her hair as she ran back through the hall and upstairs. As she passed the turn of the staircase Mr. Hancock was let in at the front door. She found his kettle furiously boiling on its wrought-iron stand near the chair. The stained glass window just behind it was dim with steam. She lowered the gas, put a tumbler in the socket of the spittoon, lit the gas burner on the bracket table and swiftly pulled open its drawers one by one. The instruments were all right ... the bottles—no chloroform, the carbolic bottle nearly empty and its label soaked and defaced. Gathering the two bottles in her hand she turned to the instrument cabinet, no serviettes, no rubber dam, clamps not up from the workshop. The top of the cabinet still to be dusted. Dust and scraps of amalgam were visible about the surfaces of the paper lining the instrument drawers. No saliva tubes in the basin. She swung round to the bureau and hurriedly read through the names of the morning’s patients. Mr. Hancock came quietly in as she was dusting the top of the instrument cabinet by pushing the boxes and bottles of materials that littered its surface to the backmost edge. They were all lightly coated with dust. It was everlasting and the long tubes and metal body of the little furnace were dull again. “Good morning,” they said simultaneously, in even tones. There were sounds of letters being opened and the turning of the pages of the appointment book. The chain of Mr. Hancock’s gold pencil case rattled softly as he made notes on the corners of the letters.

“Did you have a pleasant week-end?”

“Very” said Miriam emphatically.

There was a squeak at the side of the cabinet. “Yes” said Miriam down the speaking tube.... “Thank you. Will you please bring up some tubes and serviettes.”

“Mr. Wontner.”

“Thank you.” ... “Mrs. Hermann is ‘frightfully shocked’ at the amount of her account. What did we send it in for?”

“Seventy guineas. It’s a reduction, and it’s two years’ work for the whole family.” The bell sounded again.... “Lady Cazalet has bad toothache and can you see her at once.”

“Confound.... Will you go down and talk to her and see if you can get one of the others to see her.”

“She won’t.”

“Well then she must wait. I’ll have Mr. Wontner up.” Miriam rang. Mr. Hancock began busily washing his hands. The patient came in. He greeted him over his shoulder. Miriam gathered up the sheaf of annotated letters and the appointment book and ran down-stairs. “Has Mr. Leyton a patient Emma?” “Miss Jones just gone in, Miss.” “Oh, Emma, will you ask the workshop for Mr. Hancock’s rubber and clamps?” She rang through to Mr. Leyton’s room. “There’s a patient of Mr. Hancock’s in pain, can you see them if I can persuade them?” she murmured. “Right, in ten minutes” came the answering murmur. Mr. Hancock’s bell sounded from her room. She went to his tube in the hall. “Can I have my charts?” Running into her room she hunted out the first chart from a case full and ran upstairs with it. Mr. Hancock’s patient was sitting forward in the chair urging the adoption of the decimal system. Running down again she went into the waiting room. The dark Turkey carpeted oak furnished length seemed full of seated forms. Miriam peered and Lady Cazalet, with her hat already off rose from the deep arm-chair at her side. “Can he see me?” she said in a clear trembling undertone, her dark eyes wide upon Miriam’s. Miriam gazed deep into the limpid fear. What a privilege. How often Captain Cazalet must be beside himself with unworthiness. “Yes, if you can wait a little” she said dropping her eyes and standing with arms restrained. “I think it won’t be very long” she added lingering a moment as the little form relapsed into the chair. “Lady Cazalet will wait until you can see her” she tubed up to Mr. Hancock.

“Can’t you make her see one of the others?”

“I’m afraid it’s impossible; I’ll tell you later.”

“Well I’ll see her as soon as I can. I’m afraid she’ll have to wait.”

Miriam went back to her room to sort out the remaining charts. On her table lay a broken denture in a faded morocco case; a strip of paper directed “five-thirty sharp” in Mr. Orly’s handwriting. Mr. Leyton’s door burst open. He came with flying coat-tails.

“Vi got to see that patient of Mr. Hancock’s” he asked breathlessly.

“No” said Miriam “she won’t.”

“Right” he said swinging back. “I’ll keep Miss Jones on.”

Mr. Hancock’s bell sounded again. Miriam flew to the tube.

“My clamps please.”

“Oh yes” she answered shocked, and hurried back to her room.

Gathering up the broken denture she ran down the stone steps leading to the basement. Her cheap unyielding shoes clattered on the unyielding stones. The gas was on in the lunch room, Mrs. Willis scrubbing the floor. The voices of the servants came from the kitchens in the unknown background. She passed the lunch room and the cellar and clamped on across the stone hall to the open door of the workshop.

2

Winthrop was standing at the small furnace in the box-lined passage way. It was roaring its loudest. Through its open door the red light fell sharply on his pink-flushed face and drooping fair moustache and poured down over his white apron. “Good ph-morning” he said pleasantly, his eye on the heart of the furnace, his foot briskly pumping the blower. From the body of the room came sounds of tapping and whistling ... the noise of the furnace prevented their knowing that anyone had come in.... Miriam drew near to the furnace, relieved at the shortness of her excursion. She stared at the tiny shape blazing red-gold at the heart of the glare. Winthrop gathered up a pair of tongs and drew the mould from the little square of light. The air hissed from the bellows and the roaring of the flames died down. In a moment he was standing free with hot face and hot patient ironic eyes, gently taking the denture from her hands. “Good morning” said Miriam, “Oh, Mr. Winthrop, it’s a repair for Mr. Orly. It’s urgent. Can you manage it?” “It’s ph—ph—sure to be urgent” said Winthrop examining the denture with a short-sighted frown. Miriam waited anxiously. The hammering and whistling had ceased. “It’ll be all right, Miss Ph-Henderson” said Winthrop encouragingly. She turned to the door. The clamps.... Gathering herself together she went down the passage and stood at the head of the two stone steps leading down into the body of the room. A swift scrubbing of emery paper on metal was going on at the end of the long bench, lit by a long sky-light, from which the four faces looked up at her with a chorus of good mornings in response to her greeting. “Are Mr. Hancock’s clamps ready?” she asked diffidently. “Jimmy ...” The figure nearest to her glanced down the row of seated forms. The small bullet-headed boy at the end of the bench scrubbed vigorously and ironically with his emery stick. “He won’t be a minute, Miss Henderson” said the near pupil comfortingly.

Miriam observed his spruce grey suit curiously masked by the mechanic’s apron, the quiet controlled amused face, and felt the burden of her little attack as part of the patient prolonged boredom of his pupillage. The second pupil, sitting next to him kept dog-like sympathetic eyes on her face, waiting for a glance. She passed him by, smiling gently in response without looking at him while her eyes rested upon the form of the junior mechanic whose head was turned in the direction of the scrubbing boy. The head was refined, thin and clear cut, thatched with glossy curls. Its expression was servile—the brain eagerly seeking some flowery phrase—something to decorate at once the occasion and the speaker, and to give relief to the mouth strained in an arrested obsequious smile. Nothing came and the clever meticulous hands were idle on the board. It seemed absurd to say that Mr. Hancock was waiting for the clamps while Jimmy was scrubbing so busily. But they had obviously been forgotten. She fidgeted.

“Will somebody send them up when they’re done?”

“Jimmy, you’re a miserable sinner, hurry up” said the senior pupil.

“They’re done” said Jimmy in a cracked bass voice. “Thank goodness” breathed Miriam, dimpling. Jimmy came round and scattered the clamps carefully into her outstretched hand, with down-cast eyes and a crisp dimpling smile.

“Rule Britannia,” remarked the junior pupil, resuming his work as Miriam turned away and hurried along the passage and through the door held open for her by Winthrop. She flew up to Mr. Hancock’s room three steps at a time, tapped gently at the door and went in. He came forward across the soft grey green carpet to take the clamps and murmured gently “Have you got my carbolic?”

3

Miriam looked out the remainder of the charts and went anxiously through the little pile of letters she had brought down from Mr. Hancock’s room. All but three were straight-forward appointments to be sent. One bore besides the pencilled day and date the word “Tape” ... she glanced through it—it was from a University settlement worker, asking for an appointment for the filling of two front teeth.... She would understand increasing by one thickness per day until there were five, to be completed two days before the appointment falls due so that any tenderness may have passed off. Mrs. Hermann’s letter bore no mark. She could make a rough summary in Mr. Hancock’s phraseology. The third letter enclosed a printed card of appointment with Mr. Hancock which she had sent without filling in the day and hour. She flushed. Mr. Hancock had pencilled in the missing words. Gathering the letters together she put them as far away as her hand would reach, leaving a space of shabby ink-stained morocco clear under her hands. She looked blindly out of the window; hand-painted, they are hand-painted, forget-me-nots and gold tendrils softly painted, not shining, on an unusual shape, a merry Christmas. Melly Klismas. In this countree heapee lain, chiney man lun home again, under a red and green paper umbrella in the pouring rain, that was not a hand-painted one, but better, in some strange way, close bright colours drawing everything in; a shock. I stayed in there. There was something. Chinee man lun home again. Her eye roamed over the table; everything but the newly-arrived letters shabby under the high wide uncurtained window. The table fitted the width of the window. There was something to be done before anything could be done. Everything would look different if something were done. The fresh letters could lie neatly on the centre of the table in the midst of something. They were on the address books, spoiled by them. It would take years to check the addresses one by one till the old books could be put away. If the day books were entered up to date, there would still be those, disfiguring everything. If everything were absolutely up to date, and all the cupboards in perfect order and the discounts and decimals always done in the depot-books to time there would be time to do something. She replaced the letters in the centre of the table and put them back again on the address books. His nine-forty-five patient was being let in at the front door. In a moment his bell would ring and something must be said about the appointment card. “Mr. Orly?” A big booming elderly voice, going on heavily murmuring into the waiting-room. She listened tensely to the movements of the servant. Was Mr. Orly in “the den” or in his surgery? She heard the maid ring through to the surgery and wait. No sound. The maid came through her room and tapped at the door leading from it. Come in sang a voice from within and Miriam heard the sound of a hammer on metal as the maid opened the door. She flew to the surgery. Amidst the stillness of heavy oak furniture and dark Turkey carpet floated the confirming smell. There it was all about the spittoon and the red velvet covered chair and the bracket table, a horrible confusion—and blood stains, blood blotted serviettes, forceps that made her feel sick and faint. Summoning up her strength she gathered up the serviettes and flung them into a basket behind the instrument cabinet. She was dabbing at the stains on the American cloth cover of the bracket when Mr. Orly came swinging in, putting on his grey frock-coat and humming Gunga Din as he came. “Regular field day” he said cheerfully. “I shan’t want those things—just pop ’em out of sight.” He turned up the cupboard gas and in a moment a stream of boiling water hissed down into the basin filling the room with steam. “I say, has this man got a chart? Don’t throw away those teeth. Just look at this—how’s that for twisted? Just look here.” He took up an object to which Miriam forced reluctant eyes, grotesquely formed fangs protruding from the enclosing blades of a huge forceps. “How’s that eh?” Miriam made a sympathetic sound. Gathering the many forceps he detached their contents putting the relic into a bottle of spirit and the rest into the hidden basket. The forceps went head first into a jar of carbolic and Miriam breathed more freely. “I’ll see to those. I say has this man got a chart?” “I’ll see” said Miriam eagerly making off with the appointment book. She returned with the chart. Mr. Orly hummed and looked. “Right. Tell ’em to send him in. I say, vi got any gold and tin?” Miriam consulted the box in a drawer in the cabinet. It was empty. “I’m afraid you haven’t” she said guiltily. “All right, I’ll let y’know. Send ’im in,” and he resumed Gunga Din over the wash-hand basin. Mr. Hancock’s bell was ringing in her room and she hurried off with a sign to the little maid waiting with raised eyebrows in the hall. Darting into her room she took the foils from the safe, laid them on a clean serviette amongst the litter on her table and ran upstairs. Mr. Leyton opened his door as she passed “I say, can you feed for me” he asked breathlessly, putting out an anxious head. “I’ll come down in a minute” promised Miriam from the stairs. Mr. Hancock was drying his hands. He sounded his bell as she came in. The maid answered. “I’m so sorry” began Miriam. “Show up Mr. Green” said Mr. Hancock down the speaking tube. “You remember there’s Lady Cazalet?” said Miriam relieved and feeling she was making good her carelessness in the matter of the appointment card.

“Oh confound.” He rang again hurriedly. “Show up Lady Cazalet.” Miriam swept from the bracket table the litter of used instruments and materials, disposing them rapidly on the cabinet, into the sterilising tray, the waste basket and the wash-hand basin, tore the uppermost leaf from the headrest pad, and detached the handpiece from the arm of the motor drill while the patient was being shown upstairs. Mr. Hancock had cleared the spittoon, set a fresh tumbler, filled the kettle and whisked the debris of amalgam and cement from the bracket table before he began the scrubbing and cleansing of his hands, and when the patient came in Miriam was in her corner reluctantly handling the instruments, wet with the solution that crinkled her fingertips and made her skin brittle and dry. Everything was in its worst state. The business of drying and cleansing, freeing fine points from minute closely adhering fragments, polishing instruments on the leather pad, repolishing them with the leather, scraping the many little burs with the fine wire brush, scraping the clamps, clearing the obstinate amalgam from slab and spatula, brought across her the ever-recurring circle. The things were begun, they were getting on, she had half-done ... the exasperating tediousness of holding herself to the long series of tiny careful attention-demanding movements ... the punctual emergence when the end was in sight of the hovering reflection, nagging and questioning, that another set of things was already getting ready for another cleansing process; the endless series to last as long as she stayed at Wimpole Street ... were there any sort of people who could do this kind of thing patiently, without minding? ... the evolution of dentistry was wonderful, but the more perfect it became the more and more of this sort of thing there would be ... the more drudgery workers, at fixed salaries ... it was only possible for people who were fine and nice ... there must be, everywhere, women doing this work for people who were not nice. They could not do it for the work’s sake. Did some of them do it cheerfully, as unto God. It was wrong to work unto man. But could God approve of this kind of thing ... was it right to spend life cleaning instruments ... the blank moment again of gazing about in vain for an alternative ... all work has drudgery. That is not the answer.... BlessÈd be Drudgery, but that was housekeeping, not someone else’s drudgery.... As she put the things back in the drawers, every drawer offered tasks of tidying, replenishing, and repapering of small boxes and grooves and sections. She had remembered to bring up Lady Cazalet’s chart. It looked at her propped against the small furnace. Behind it were the other charts for the day complete. The drug bottles were full, there was plenty of amadou pulled soft and cut ready for use, a fair supply of both kinds of Japanese paper. None of the bottles and boxes of stopping materials were anywhere near running short and the gold drawer was filled. She examined the drawers that held the less frequently used fittings and materials, conducting her operations noiselessly without impeding Mr. Hancock’s perpetual movements to and fro between the chair and the instrument cabinet. Meanwhile the dressing of Lady Cazalet’s painful tooth went quietly on and Mr. Leyton was waiting, hoping for her assistance downstairs. There was no excuse for waiting upstairs any longer. She went to the writing table and hung over the appointment book.

4

It was a busy day. He would hardly have half an hour for lunch.... She examined the names carefully, one by one, and wrote against one “ask address,” underlined and against another “enquire for brother—ill.” Lady Cazalet drew a deep sigh ... she had been to other dentists. But perhaps they were good ones. Perhaps she was about thirty ... had she ever gone through a green baize door and seen a fat common little man with smooth sly eyes standing waiting for her in a dark stuffy room smelling of creosote? Even if she had always been to good ones they were not Mr. Hancock. They were dentists. Cheerful ordinary men with ordinary voices and laughs, thinking about all manner of things. Or apparently bland, with ingratiating manners. Perhaps a few of them, some of his friends and some of the young men he had trained were something like him. Interested in dentistry and the way it was all developing, some of them more enthusiastic and interested in certain special things than he was. But no one could be quite like him. No other patients had the lot of his patients. No other dentist was so completely conscious of the patient all the time, as if he were in the chair himself. No other dentist went on year after year remaining sensitive to everything the patient had to endure. No one else was so unsparing of himself ... children coming eagerly in for their dentistry, sitting in the chair with slack limbs and wide open mouths and tranquil eyes ... small bodies braced and tense, fat hands splayed out tightly on the too-big arms of the chair in determination to bear the moment of pain bravely for him.... She wandered to the corner cupboard and opened it and gazed idly in. But none of them knew what it cost.... “I think you won’t have any more pain with that; I’ll just put in a dressing for the present”—she was Lady Cazalet again, without tooth-ache, and that awful feeling that you know your body won’t last ... they did not know what it cost. What always doing the best for the patient meant. Perhaps they knew in a way; or knew something and did not know what it was ... there would be something different in Mr. Hancock’s expression, especially in the three quarters view when his face was turned away towards the instrument cabinet, if he saved his nerves and energy and money by doing things less considerately, not perpetually having the instruments sharpened and perpetually buying fresh outfits of sharp burs. The patient would suffer more pain ... a dentist at his best ought to be more delicately strong and fine than a doctor ... like a fine engraving ... a surgeon working amongst live nerves ... and he would look different himself. It was in him. It was keeping to that, all day, and every day, choosing the best difficult tiresome way in everything that kept that radiance about him when he was quietly at work ... I mustn’t stay here thinking these thoughts ... it’s that evil thing in me, keeping on and on, always thinking thoughts, nothing getting done ... going through life like—a stuck pig. If I went straight on things would come like that just the same in flashes—bang, bang, in your heart, everything breaking into light just in front of you, making you almost fall off the edge into the expanse coming up before you, flowers and light stretching out. Then you shut it down, letting it go through you with a leap that carries you to the moon—the sun, and makes you bump with life like the little boy bursting out of his too small clothes and go on choking with song to do the next thing deftly. That’s right. Perhaps that is what they all do? Perhaps that’s why they won’t stop to remember. Do you realise? Do you realise you’re in Brussels? Just look at the white houses there with the bright green trees against them in the light. It’s the air, the clearness. Sh—If they hear you, they’ll put up the rent. They were just Portsmouth and Gosport people, staying in Brussels and fussing about Portsmouth and Gosport and Aunt this and Mr. that.... I shan’t realise Brussels and Belgium for years because of that. They hated and killed me because I was like that.... I must be like that ... something comes along, golden, and presently there is a thought. I can’t be easy till I’ve said it in my mind, and I’m sad till I have said it somehow ... and sadder when I have said it. But nothing gets done. I must stop thinking, from now, and be fearfully efficient. Then people will understand and like me. They will hate me too, because I shall be absurd, I shan’t be really in it. Perhaps I shall. Perhaps I shall get in. The wonder is they don’t hate me more. There was a stirring in the chair and a gushing of fresh water into the tumbler. Why do I meet such nice people? One after another. “There” said Mr. Hancock, “I don’t think that will trouble you any more. We will make another appointment.” Miriam took the appointment book and a card to the chair-side and stayed upstairs to clear up.

When she reached the hall Mr. Orly’s door was standing wide. Going into the surgery she found the head parlourmaid rapidly wiping instruments with a soiled serviette. “Is it all right, James?” she said vaguely, glancing round the room.

“Yes miss,” answered James briskly emptying the half-filled tumbler and going on to dry and polish it with the soiled serviette ... the housemaid spirit ... the dry corner of a used serviette probably appeared to James much too good to wipe anything with. Telling her would not be any good. She would think it waste of time.... Besides, Mr. Orly himself would not really mind; and the things were “mechanikly clean” ... that was a good phrase of Mr. Leyton’s ... with his own things always soaking even his mallets, until there was no polish left on the handles; and his nailbrush in a bath of alcohol.... Mr. Orly came in, large and spruce. He looked at his hands and began combing his beard, standing before the overmantel. “Hancock busy?”

“Frightfully busy.”

Miriam looked judicially round the room. James hovered. The north wind howled. The little strip of sky above the outside wall that obscured the heavily stained glass of the window seemed hardly to light the room and the little light there was was absorbed by the heavy dull oak furniture and the dark heavy Turkey carpet and dado of dull red and tarnished gold.

“It is dark for April” murmured Miriam. “I’ll take away your gold and tin box if I may.”

“Thank ye” said Mr. Orly nervously, wheeling about with a harsh sigh to scan the chair and bracket-table; straightening his waistcoat and settling his tie. “I got through without it—used some of that new patent silicate stuff of Leyton’s. All right—show in the Countess.”

James disappeared. Miriam secured the little box and made off. On her table was a fresh pile of letters, annotated in Mr. Orly’s clear stiff upright rounded characters. She went hurriedly through them. Extricating her blotter she sat down and examined the inkstand. Of course one of her pens had been used and flung down still wet with its nib resting against the handle of the other pens.... Mr. Leyton ... his gold filling; she ought to go in and see if she could help ... perhaps he had finished by now. She wiped away the ink from the nib and the pen-handles.

Tapping at Mr. Leyton’s door she entered. He quickly turned a flushed face his feet scrabbling noisily against the bevelled base of the chair with the movement of his head. “Sawl right Miss Henderson. I’ve finished. ’V’you got any emery strips—mine are all worn out.”

6

Back once more in her room she heard two voices talking both at once excitedly in the den. Mrs. Orly had a morning visitor. She would probably stay to lunch. She peered into the little folding mirror hanging by the side of the small mantelpiece and saw a face flushed and animated so far. Her hair was as unsatisfactory as usual. As she looked she became conscious of its uncomfortable weight pinned to the back of her head and the unpleasant warm feeling of her thick fringe. By lunch-time her face would be strained and yellow with sitting at work in the cold room with her feet on the oil-cloth under the window. She glanced at the oil lamp standing in the little fireplace, its single flame glaring nakedly against the red-painted radiator. The telephone bell rang. Through the uproar of mechanical sounds that came to her ear from the receiver she heard a far off faint angry voice in incoherent reiteration. “Hullo, hullo” she answered encouragingly. The voice faded but the sounds went on punctuated by a sharp angry popping. Mr. Orly’s door opened and his swift heavy tread came through the hall. Miriam looked up apprehensively, saying “Hullo” at intervals into the angry din of the telephone. He came swiftly on humming in a soft light baritone, his broad forehead, bald rounded crown and bright fair beard shining in the gloom of the hall. A crumpled serviette swung with his right hand. Perhaps he was going to the workshop. The door of the den opened. Mrs. Orly appeared and made an inarticulate remark abstractedly and disappeared. “Hullo, hullo” repeated Miriam busily into the telephone. There was a loud report and the thin angry voice came clear from a surrounding silence. Mr. Orly came in on tiptoe, sighed impatiently and stood near her drumming noiselessly on the table at her side. “Wrong number” said Miriam, “will you please ring off?”

“What a lot of trouble they givya” said Mr. Orly. “I say, what’s the name of the American chap Hancock was talking about at lunch yesterday?” Miriam frowned.

“Can y’remember? About sea-power.”

“Oh” said Miriam relieved. “Mahan.”

“Eh?”

“Mahan. May-ann.”

“That’s it. You’ve got it. Wonderful. Don’t forget to send off Major Moke’s case sharp will ye?”

Miriam’s eyes scanned the table and caught sight of a half hidden tin-box.

“No. I’ll get it off.”

“Right. It’s in a filthy state, but there’s no time to clean it.”

He strode back through the hall murmuring Mahan. Miriam drew the tin from its place of concealment. It contained a mass of dirty cotton-wool upon which lay a double denture coated with tartar and joined by tarnished gold springs. “Eleven thirty sharp” ran the instruction on an accompanying scrap of paper. No address. The name of the patient was unfamiliar. Mrs. Orly put her head through the door of the den.

“What did Ro want?”

Miriam turned towards the small sallow eager face and met the kind sweet intent blue glint of the eyes. She explained and Mrs. Orly’s anxious little face broke into a smile that dispelled the lines on the broad strip of low forehead leaving it smooth and sallow under the smoothly brushed brown hair.

“How funny” said Mrs. Orly hurriedly. “I was just comin’ out to ask you the name of that singer. You know. Mark something. Marksy....”

“Mar-kaysie” said Miriam.

“That’s it. I can’t think how you remember.” Mrs. Orly disappeared and the two voices broke out again in eager chorus. Miriam returned to her tin. Mastering her disgust she removed the plate from the box, shook the cotton-wool out into the paper-basket collected fresh wool, packing paper, sealing wax, candle and matches and set to work to make up the parcel. She would have to attack the workshop again and get them to take it out. Perhaps they would know the address. When the case was half packed she looked up the patient’s name in the ledger. Five entries in about as many years—either repairs or springs—how simple dentistry became when people had lost all their teeth. There were two addresses, a town and a country one written in a long time ago in ink; above them were two in pencil, one crossed out. The newest of the address books showed these two addresses, one in ink, neither crossed out. What had become of the card and letter that came with the case? In the den with Mrs. Orly and her guest....

Footsteps were coming neatly and heavily up the basement stairs. Winthrop. He came in smiling, still holding his long apron gathered up to free his knees. “Ph—Ph—Major Moke’s case ready?” he whispered cheerfully.

“Almost—but I don’t know the address.”

“It’s the ph—ph—Buckinam Palace Otel. It’s to go by hand.”

“Oh, thank goodness” laughed Miriam sweeping the scissors round the uneven edge of the wrapping paper.

“My word” said Winthrop, “What an eye you’ve got I couldn’t do that to ph-save melife and I’m supposed to be a ph-mechanic.”

“Have I,” said Miriam surprised, “I shan’t be two minutes; it’ll be ready by the time anybody’s ready to go. But the letters aren’t.”

“All right. I’ll send up for them when we go out to lunch,” said Winthrop consolingly, disappearing.

Miriam found a piece of fine glazed green twine in her string box and tied up the neat packet—sealing the ends of the string with a neat blob on the upper side of the packet and the folded paper at each end. She admired the two firmly flattened ends of string close together. Their free ends united by the firm red blob were a decorative substitute for a stamp on the white surface of the paper. She wrote in the address in an upright rounded hand with firm rotund little embellishments. Poring over the result she examined it at various distances. It was delightful. She wanted to show it to someone. It would be lost on Major Moke. He would tear open the paper to get at his dreadful teeth. Putting the stamps on the label, she regretfully resigned the packet and took up Mr. Orly’s day-book. It was in arrears—three, four days not entered in the ledger. Major Moke repair—one guinea, she wrote. Mr. Hancock’s showing out bell rang. She took up her packet and surveyed it upside down. The address looked like Chinese. It was really beautiful ... but handwriting was doomed ... short-hand and typewriting ... she ought to know them if she were ever to make more than a pound a week as a secretary ... awful. What a good thing Mr. Hancock thought them unprofessional ... yet there were already men in Wimpole Street who had their correspondence typed. What did he mean by saying that the art of conversation was doomed? He did not like conversation. Jimmy came in for the parcel and scuttled downstairs with it. Mr. Hancock’s patient was going out through the hall. He had not rung for her to go up. Perhaps there was very little to clear and he was doing it himself.

7

He was coming downstairs. Her hands went to the pile of letters and busily sorted them. Through the hall. In here. Leisurely. How are you getting on? Half amused. Half solicitous. The first weeks. The first day. She had only just come. Perhaps there would be the hand on the back of the chair again as before he discovered the stiffness like his own stiffness. He was coming right round to the side of the chair into the light, waiting, without having said anything. She seemed to sit through a long space waiting for him to speak, in a radiance that shaped and smoothed her face as she turned slowly and considered the blunted grave features, their curious light, and met the smiling grey eyes. They were not observing the confusion on the table. He had something to say that had nothing to do with the work. She waited startled into an overflowing of the curious radiance, deepening the light in which they were grouped. “Are you busy?” “No,” said Miriam in quiet abandonment. “I want your advice on a question of decoration” he pursued smiling down at her with the expression of a truant schoolboy and standing aside as she rose. “My patient’s put off” he added confidentially, holding the door wide for her. Miriam trotted incredulously upstairs in front of him and in at the open surgery door and stood contemplating the room from the middle of the great square of soft thick grey green carpet with her back to the great triple window and the littered remains of a long sitting.

Perhaps a question of decoration meant altering the positions of some of the pictures. She glanced about at them, enclosed in her daily unchanging unsatisfying impressions—the green landscape plumy with meadow-sweet, but not letting you through to wander in fields, the little soft bright coloury painting of the doorway of St. Mark’s—San Marco, painted by an Englishman, with a procession going in at the door and beggars round the doorway, blobby and shapeless like English peasants in Italian clothes ... bad ... and the man had worked and studied and gone to Italy and had a name and still worked and people bought his things ... an engraving very fine and small of a low bridge in a little town, quiet sharp cheering lines; and above it another engraving, a tiresome troubled girl, all a sharp film of fine woven lines and lights and shadows in a rich dark liny filmy interior, neither letting you through nor holding you up, the girl worrying there in the middle of the picture, not moving, an obstruction.... Maris ... the two little water colours of Devonshire, a boat with a brown sail and a small narrow piece of a street zig-zagging sharply up between crooked houses, by a Londoner—just to say how crooked everything was ... that thing in this month’s Studio was better than any of these ... her heart throbbed suddenly as she thought of it ... a narrow sandy pathway going off, frilled with sharp greenery, far into a green wood.... Had he seen it? The studios lay safely there on the polished table in the corner, the disturbing bowl of flowers from the country, the great pieces of pottery, friends, warm and sympathetic to touch, never letting you grow tired of their colour and design ... standing out against the soft dull gold of the dado and the bold soft green and buff of the wall paper. The oil painting of the cousin was looking on a little superciliously ... centuries of “fastidious refinement” looking forth from her child’s face. If she were here it would be she would be consulted about the decoration; but she was away somewhere in some house, moving about in a dignified way under her mass of gold hair, saying things when speech became a necessity in the refined fastidious half-contemptuous tone, hiding her sensitive desire for companionship, contemptuous of most things and most people. To-day she had an interested look, she was half jealously setting standards for him all the time.... Miriam set her aside. The Chinese figures staring down ferociously from the narrow shelf running along the base of the high white frieze were more real to her. They belonged to the daily life here, secure from censure.

8

From the brown paper wrappings emerged a large plaque of Oriental pottery. Mr. Hancock manoeuvred it upright, holding it opposite to her on the floor, supported against his knees. “There—what do you think of that?” he murmured bending over it. Miriam’s eyes went from the veinings on his flushed forehead to the violent soft rich red and blue and dull green covering the huge concave disc from side to side. It appeared to represent a close thicket of palm fronds, thin flat fingers, superimposed and splaying out in all directions over the deep blue background. In the centre appeared the head and shoulders of an enormous tiger, coming sinuously forward, one great paw planted on the greenery near the foremost middle edge of the plaque.

“M’m,” said Miriam staring.

Mr. Hancock rubbed the surface of the plaque with his forefinger. Miriam came near and ran her finger down across the rich smooth reliefs.

“Where shall I put it?” said Mr. Hancock.

“I should have it somewhere on that side of the room, where the light falls on it.”

Mr. Hancock raised the plaque in his arms and walked with it to the wall raising it just above his head and holding it in place between the two pictures of Devonshire. They faded to a small muddled dinginess, and the buff and green patterning of the wall-paper showed shabby and dim.

“It looks somehow too big or too small or something.... I should have it down level with the eyes, so that you can look straight into it.”

Mr. Hancock carefully lowered it.

“Let me come and hold it so that you can look” said Miriam advancing.

“It’s too heavy for you” said Mr. Hancock straining his head back and moving it from side to side.

“I believe it would look best” said Miriam “across the corner of the room as you come in—where the corner cupboard is—I’m sure it would” she said eagerly and went back to the centre of the carpet.

Mr. Hancock smiled towards the small oak cupboard fixed low in the angle of the wall.

“We should have to move the cupboard,” he said dubiously and carried the heavy plate to the indicated place.

“That’s simply lovely” said Miriam in delight as he held the plaque in front of the long narrow faÇade of black oak.

Mr. Hancock lowered the plaque to the floor and propped it crosswise against the angle.

“It would be no end of a business fixing it up” he murmured crossing to her side. They stood looking at the beautiful surface blurred a little in the light by its backward tilt. They gazed fascinated as the plaque slid gently forward and fell heavily breaking into two pieces.

They regarded one another quietly and went forward to gather up the fragments. The broken sides gritted together as Miriam held hers steady for the other to be fitted to it. When they were joined the crack was hardly visible.

“That’ll be a nice piece of work for Messrs. Nikkoo” said Mr. Hancock with a little laugh, “we’d better get it in back behind the sofa for the present.” They spread the brown paper over the brilliant surfaces and stood up. Miriam’s perceptions raced happily along. How had he known that she cared for things? She was not sure that she did ... not in the way that he did.... How did he know that she had noticed any of his things? Because she had blurted out “Oh what a perfectly lovely picture” when he showed her the painting of his cousin? But that was because he admired his cousin and her brother had painted the picture and he admired them both and she had not known about this when she spoke.

“Did you see this month’s Studio?” she asked shyly.

He turned to the table and took up the uppermost of the pile.

“There’s a lovely green picture” said Miriam, “at least I like it.”

Mr. Hancock turned pages ruminatively.

“Those are good things” he said flattening the open page.

“Japanese flower Decorations” read Miriam looking at the reproduced squares of flowering branches arranged with a curious naturalness in strange flat dishes. They fascinated her at once—stiff and real, shooting straight up from the earth and branching out. They seemed coloured. She turned pages and gazed.

“How nice and queer.”

Mr. Hancock bent smiling. “They’ve got a whole science of this you know” he said; “it takes them years to learn it; they apprentice themselves and study for years....”

Miriam looked incredulously at the simple effects—just branches placed “artistically” in flat dishes and fixed somehow at the base amongst little heaps of stones.

“It looks easy enough.”

Mr. Hancock laughed. “Well—you try. We’ll get some broom or something, and you shall try your hand. You’d better read the article. Look here—they’ve got names for all the angles.... ‘Shin’—he read with amused admiring delight, ‘sho-shin’ ... there’s no end of it.”

Miriam fired and hesitated. “It’s like a sort of mathematics.... I’m no good at mathematics.”

“I expect you could get very good results ... we’ll try. They carry it to such extraordinary lengths because there’s all sorts of social etiquette mixed up with it—you can’t have a branch pointing at a guest for instance—it would be rude.”

“No wonder it takes them years” said Miriam.

They laughed together, moving vaguely about the room.

Mr. Hancock looked thoughtfully at the celluloid tray of hairpins on the mantelshelf, and blew the dust from it ... there was something she remembered in some paper, very forcibly written, about the falsity of introducing single specimens of Japanese art, the last results of centuries of an artistic discipline, that was it, that had grown from the life of a secluded people living isolated in a particular spot under certain social and natural conditions, into English household decoration.... “Gleanings in Buddha Fields” the sun on rice-fields ... and Fujiama—Fuji-no-San in the distance ... but he did not like Hearn—“there’s something in the chap that puts me off” ... puts off—what a good phrase ... “something sensuous in him” ... but you could never forget Buddha Fields. It made you know you were in Japan, in the picture of Japan ... and somebody had said that all good art, all great art, had a sensuous element ... it was dreadful, but probably true ... because the man had observed it and was not an artist, but somebody looking carefully on. Mr. Hancock, Englishman, was “put off” by sensuousness, by anybody taking a delight in the sun on rice fields and the gay colours of Japan ... perhaps one ought to be “put off” by Hearn ... but Mr. Hancock liked Japanese things and bought them and put them in with his English things, that looked funny and tame beside them. What he did not like was the expression of delight. It was queer and annoying somehow ... especially as he said that the way English women were trained to suppress their feelings was bad. He had theories and fixed preferences and yet always seemed to be puzzled about so many things.

“D’you think it right to try to introduce single pieces of Japanese art into English surroundings?” she said tartly, beginning on the instruments.

“East is East and West is West and never the twain can meet?”

“That’s a dreadful idea—I don’t believe it a bit.”

Mr. Hancock laughed. He believed in those awful final dreary-weary things ... some species are so widely differentiated that they cannot amalgamate—awful ... but if one said that he would laugh and say it was beyond him ... and he liked and disliked without understanding the curious differences between people—did not know why they were different—they put him off or did not put him off and he was just. He liked and reverenced Japanese art and there was an artist in his family. That was strange and fine.

“I suppose we ought to have some face-powder here,” mused Mr. Hancock.

“They’ll take longer than ever if we do.”

“I know—that’s the worst of it; but I commit such fearful depredations ... we want a dressing room ... if I had my way we’d have a proper dressing room downstairs. But I think we must get some powder and a puff.... Do you think you could get some...?” Miriam shrank. Once in a chemist’s shop, in a strong Burlington Arcade west-end mood buying some scent, she had seized and bought a little box.... La Dorine de Poche ... Dorin, Paris ... but that was different to asking openly for powder and a puff ... la Dorine de Dorin Paris was secret and wonderful.... “I’ll try” she said bravely and heard the familiar little sympathetic laugh.

9

Lunch would be ready in a few minutes and none of the letters were done. She glanced distastefully at the bold handwritings scrawling, under impressive stamped addresses with telephone numbers, and names of stations and telegraphic addresses, across the well-shaped sheets of expensive note-paper, to ask in long, fussy, badly-put sentences for expensive appointments. Several of the signatures were unfamiliar to her and must be looked up in the ledger in case titles might be attached. She glanced at the dates of the appointments—they could all go by the evening post. What a good thing Mr. Hancock had given up overlooking the correspondence. Mrs. Hermann’s letter he should see ... but that could not anyhow have been answered by return. The lunch-bell rang.... Mr. Orly’s letters! There was probably a telegram or some dreadful urgent thing about one or other of them that ought to have been dealt with. With beating heart she fumbled them through—each one bore the word answered in Mrs. Orly’s fine pointed hand. Thank goodness. Opening a drawer she crammed them into a crowded clip ... at least a week’s addresses to be checked or entered.... Mr. Hancock’s unanswered letters went into the same drawer, leaving her table fairly clear. Mr. Leyton’s door burst open, he clattered down the basement stairs. Miriam went into his room and washed her hands in the corner basin under the patent unleaking taps. Everything was splashed over with permanganate of potash. The smell of the room combined all the dental drugs with the odour of leather—a volunteer officer’s accoutrements lay in confusion all over on the secretaire. Beside them stood an open pot of leather polish. Mr. and Mrs. Orly passed the open door and went downstairs. They were alone. The guest had gone.

10

“Come and share the remains of the banquet Miss Hens’n.”

“Do have just a bit of somethin’, Ro darling, a bit of chicking or somethin’.”

“Feeling the effects?” remarked Mr. Leyton cheerfully munching, “I’ve got a patient at half past” he added nervously glancing up as if to justify his existence as well as his remark. Miriam hoped he would go on; perhaps it would occur to Mrs. Orly to ask him about the patient.

“You’d feel the effects my boy if you hadn’t had a wink the whole blessed night.”

“Hancock busy Miss Hens’?” Miriam glanced at the flushed forehead and hoped that Mr. Orly would remain with his elbows on the table and his face hidden in his hands. She was hungry and there would be no peace for anybody if he were roused.

“Too many whiskies?” enquired Mr. Leyton cheerfully, shovelling salad on to his plate.

“Too much whisking and frisking altogether sergeant,” said Mr. Orly incisively, raising his head.

Mrs. Orly flushed and frowned at Mr. Orly.

“Don’t be silly Ley—you know how father hates dinner parties.”

Mr. Orly sighed harshly, pulling himself up as Miriam began a dissertation on Mr. Hancock’s crowded day.

“Ze got someone with him now?” put in Mrs. Orly perfunctorily.

“Wonderful man” sighed Mr. Orly harshly, glancing at his son.

“Have a bit of chicking Ro.”

“No my love no not all the perfumes of Araby—not all the chickens of Cheshire. Have some patÉ Miss Hens’—No? You despise patÉ?” A maid came briskly in and looked helpfully round.

“Who’s your half past one patient Ley?” asked Mrs. Orly nervously.

“Buck” rapped Mr. Leyton. “We going to wait for Mr. Hancock, Mater?”

“No, of course not. Keep some things hot Emma and bring in the sweets.”

“Have some more chicken Miss Hens’—Emma!” he indicated his son with a flourish of his serviette. “Wait upon Mr. Leyton, serve him speedily.”

Emma arrested looked helpfully about, smiled in brisk amusement, seized some dishes and went out.

Mrs. Orly’s pinched face expanded. “Silly you are, Ro.” Miriam grinned, watching dreamily. Mr. Leyton’s flushed face rose and dipped spasmodically over the remains of his salad.

“Bucking for Buck”—laughed Mr. Orly in a soft falsetto.

“Ro, you are silly, who’s Buck, Ley?”

“Don’t question the officer Nelly.”

“Ro, you are absurd,” laughed Mrs. Orly.

“Help the jellies dearest” shouted Mr. Orly in a frowning whisper. “Have some jelly, Miss Hens’. It’s all right Ley ... glad you so busy, my son. How many did you have this morning?” Mopping his brow and whisking his person with his serviette he glanced sidelong.

“Two” said Mr. Leyton, noisily spooning up jelly, “any more of that stuff mater, how about Hancock?”

“There’s plenty here” said Mrs. Orly helping him. Miriam laboured with her jelly and glanced at the dish. People wolfed their food. It would seem so conspicuous to begin again when the fuss had died down; with Mr. Orly watching as if feeding were a contemptible self-indulgence.

“Had a beastly gold case half the morning” rapped Mr. Leyton and drank, with a gulp.

“Get any help?” said Mr. Orly glancing at Miriam. “No” said Mr. Leyton in a non-committal tone, reaching across the table for the cheese.

“Hancock too busy?” asked Mr. Orly. “Have some more jelly, Miss Hens’n.”

“No thank you” said Miriam.

“A bit of cheese; a fragment of giddy Gorgonzola.”

“No thanks.”

Mrs. Orly brushed busily at her bodice, peering down with indrawn chin. The room was close with gas. If Mr. Hancock would only come down and give her the excuse of attending to his room.

“What you doing s’aafnoon?” asked Mr. Leyton.

“I, my boy, I don’t know,” said Mr. Orly with a heavy sigh, “string myself up, I think.”

“You’d much better string yourself round the Outer Circle and take Lennard’s advice.”

“Good advice my boy—if we all took good advice ... eh Miss Hens’n? I’ve taken twenty grains of phenacetin this morning.”

“Well, you go and get a good walk,” said Mr. Leyton clattering to his feet. “S’cuse me, Mater.”

“Right my boy! Excellent! A Daniel come to judgment! All right Ley—get on with you. Buck up and see Buck. Oh-h-h my blooming head. Excuse my language Miss Hens’n. Ah! Here’s the great man. Good morning Hancock. How are you? D’they know you’re down?”

Mr. Hancock murmured his greetings and sat down opposite Miriam with a grave preoccupied air.

“Busy?” asked Mr. Orly turning to face his partner.

“Yes—fairly” said Mr. Hancock pleasantly.

“Wonderful man.... Ley’s gone off like a bee in a gale. D’they know Hancock’s down Nelly?”

Miriam glanced at Mr. Hancock wishing he could lunch in peace. He was tired. Did he too feel oppressed with the gas and the pale madder store cupboards? ... glaring muddy hot pink? “I’ve got a blasted head on ... excuse my language. Twenty of ’em, twenty to dinner.”

“Oh yes?” said Mr. Hancock shifting in his chair and glancing about.

“Nelly! D’they know he’s down? Start on a patÉ, Hancock. The remains of the banquet.”

“Oh ... well, thanks.”

“You never get heads do ye?”

Mr. Hancock smiled and began a murmuring response as he busied himself with his patÉ.

“Poor Ro he’s got a most awful head.... How’s your uncle Mr. Hancock?”

“Oh—thank you.... I’m afraid he’s not very flourishing.”

“He’s better than he used to be, isn’t he?”

“Well—yes, I think perhaps on the whole he is.”

“You ought to have been there, Hancock. Cleave came. He was in no end of form. Told us some fine ones. Have a biscuit and butter Miss Hens’n.”

Miriam refused and excused herself.

On her way upstairs she strolled into Mr. Leyton’s room. He greeted her with a smile—polishing instruments busily.

“Mr. Hancock busy?” he asked briskly.

“M’m.”

“You busy? I say if I have Buck in will you finish up these things?”

“All right, if you like” said Miriam, regretting her sociable impulse. “Is Mr. Buck here?” She glanced at the appointment book.

“Yes, he’s waiting.”

“You haven’t got anybody else this afternoon” observed Miriam.

“I know. But I want to be down at Headquarters by five in full kit if I possibly can. Has the Pater got anybody?”

“No. The afternoon’s marked off—he’s going out, I think. Look here, I’ll clear up your things afterwards if you want to go out. Will you want all these for Mr. Buck?”

“Oh—all right, thanks; I dunno. I’ve got to finish him off this afternoon and make him pay up.”

“Why pay up? Isn’t he trustworthy?”

“Trustworthy? A man who’s just won three hundred pounds on a horse and chucked his job on the strength of it.”

“What a fearfully insane thing to do.”

“Lost his head.”

“Is he very young?”

“Oo—’bout twenty-five.”

“H’m. I spose he’ll begin the rake’s progress.”

“That’s about it. You’ve just about hit it” said Mr. Leyton with heavy significance.

Miriam lingered.

“I boil every blessed thing after he’s been ... if that’s any indication to you.”

“Boil them!” said Miriam vaguely distressed and pondering over Mr. Leyton standing active and aseptic between her and some horror ... something infectious ... it must be that awful mysterious thing ... how awful for Mr. Leyton to have to stop his teeth.

“Boil ’em” he chuckled knowingly.

“Why on earth?” she asked.

“Well—there you are” said Mr. Leyton—“that’s all I can tell you. I boil ’em.”

“Crikey” said Miriam half in response and half in comment on his falsetto laugh, as she made for the door. “Oh, but I say, I don’t understand your boiling apparatus, Mr. Leyton.”

“All right, don’t you worry. I’ll set it all going and shove the things in. You’ve only to turn off the gas and wipe ’em. I daresay I shall have time to do them myself.”

11

When she had prepared for Mr. Hancock’s first afternoon patient Miriam sat down at her crowded table in a heavy drowse. No sound came from the house or from the den. The strip of sky above the blank wall opposite her window was an even cold grey. There was nothing to mark the movement of the noisy wind. The room was cold and stuffy. Shivering as she moved, she glanced round at the lamp. It was well trimmed. The yellow flame was at its broadest. The radiator glared. The warmth did not reach her. She was cold to the waist, her feet without feeling on the strip of linoleum; her knees protruding into the window space felt as if they were in cold water. Her arms crept and flushed with cold at every movement, strips of cold wrist disgusted her, showing beyond her skimpy sleeves and leading to the hopelessness of her purplish red hands swollen and clammy with cold. Her hot head and flushed cheeks begged for fresh air. Warm rooms, with carpets and fires; an even, airy warmth.... There were people who could be in this sort of cold and be active, with cool faces and warm hands, even just after lunch. If Mr. Leyton were here he would be briskly entering up the books—perhaps with a red nose; but very brisk. He was finishing Buck off; briskly, not even talking. Mr. Hancock would be working swiftly at well up-to-date accounts, without making a single mistake. Where had he sat doing all those pages of beautiful spidery book-keeping? Mr. Orly would be rushing things through. What a drama. He knew it. He knew he had earned his rest by the fire ... doing everything, making and building the practice ... people waiting outside the surgery with basins for him to rush out and be sick. Her sweet inaccurate help in the fine pointed writing on cheap paper ... the two cheap rooms they started in.... The Wreck of the Mary Gloucester ... “and never a doctor’s brougham to help the missis unload.” They had been through everything together ... it was all there with them now ... rushing down the street in the snow without an overcoat to get her the doctor. They were wise and sweet; in life and wise and sweet. They had gone out and would be back for tea. Perhaps they had gone out. Everything was so quiet. Two hours of cold before tea. Putting in order the materials for the gold and tin she propped her elbows on the table and rested her head against her hands and closed her eyes. There was a delicious drowsiness in her head but her back was tired. She rose and wandered through the deserted hall into the empty waiting room. The clear blaze of a coal fire greeted her at the doorway and her cold feet hurried in on to the warm Turkey carpet. The dark oak furniture and the copper bowls and jugs stood in a glow of comfort. From the centre of the great littered table a bowl of daffodils asserted the movement of the winter and pointed forward and away from the winter stillness of the old room. The long faded rich crimson rep curtains obscured half the width of each high window and the London light screened by the high opposing houses fell dimly on the dingy books and periodicals scattered about the table. Miriam stood by the mantelpiece her feet deep in the black sheepskin rug and held out her hands towards the fire. They felt cold again the instant she withdrew them from the blaze. The hall clock gonged softly twice. The legal afternoon had begun. Anyone finding her in here now would think she was idling. She glanced at the deep dark shabby leather armchair near by and imagined the relief that would come to her whole frame, if she could relax into it for five undisturbed minutes. The ringing of the front door bell sent her hurrying back to her room.

The sound of reading came from the den—a word-mouthing word-slurring monotonous drawl—thurrah-thurrah-thurrah; thurrah thurrah ... a single beat, on and on, the words looped and forced into it without any discrimination, the voice dropping uniformly at the end of each sentence ... thrah.... An Early Victorian voice giving reproachful instruction to a child ... a class of board school children reciting.... Perhaps they had changed their minds about going out.... Miriam sat with her hands tucked between her knees musing with her eyes fixed on the thin sheets of tin and gold ... extraordinary to read any sort of text like that ... but there was something in it, something nice and good ... listening carefully you would get most of the words. It would be better to listen to than a person who read with intelligent modulations, as if they had written the thing themselves; like some men read ... and irritatingly intelligent women ... who knew they were intelligent. But there ought to be clear ... enunciation. Not expression—that was like commenting as you read; getting at the person you were reading to ... who might not want to comment in the same way. Reading, with expression, really hadn’t any expression. How wonderful—of course. Mrs. Orly’s reading had an expression; a shape. It was exactly like the way they looked at things; exactly; everything was there; all the things they agreed about, and the things he admired in her ... things that by this time she knew he admired.... She was conscious of these things ... that was the difference between her and her sister, who had exactly the same things but had never been admired ... standing side by side exactly alike, the sister like a child—clear with a sharp fresh edge; Mrs. Orly with a different wisdom ... softened and warm and blurred ... conscious, and always busy distracting your attention, but with clear eyes like a child, too.

12

Presently the door opened quietly and Mrs. Orly appeared in the doorway. “Miss Hens’n” she whispered urgently. Miriam turned to meet her flushed face. “Oh Miss Hens’n” she pursued absently, “if Mudie’s send d’you mind lookin’ and choosin’ us something nice?” “Oh” said Miriam provisionally with a smile.

Mrs. Orly closed the door quietly and advanced confidently with deprecating bright wheedling eyes. “Isn’t it tahsome” she said conversationally. “Ro’s asleep and the carriage is comin’ round at half past. Isn’t it tahsome?”

“Can’t you send it back?”

“I want him to go out; I think the drive will do him good. I say, d’you mind just lookin’—at the books?”

“No, I will; but how shall I know what to keep? Is there a list?”

Mrs. Orly looked embarrassed. “I’ve got a list somewhere” she said hurriedly, “but I can’t find it.”

“I’ll do my best” said Miriam.

“You know—anythin’ historical ... there’s one I put down ‘The Sorrows of a Young Queen.’ Keep that if they send it and anything else you think.”

“Is there anything to go back?”

“Yes, I’ll bring them out. We’ve been reading an awful one—awful.”

Miriam began fingering her gold foil. Mrs. Orly was going to expect her to be shocked....

“By that awful man Zola....”

“Oh yes” said Miriam, dryly.

“Have you read any of his?”

“Yes” said Miriam carefully.

“Have you? Aren’t they shockin’?”

“Well I don’t know. I thought ‘Lourdes’ was simply wonderful.”

“Is that a nice one—what’s it about?”

“Oh you know—it’s about the Madonna of Lourdes, the miracles, in the south of France. It begins with a crowded trainload of sick people going down through France on a very hot day ... it’s simply stupendous ... you feel you’re in the train, you go through it all”—she turned away and looked through the window overcome ... “and there’s a thing called ‘La RÊve’” she went on incoherently with a break in her voice “about an embroideress and a man called Felicien—it’s simply the most lovely thing.”

Mrs. Orly came near to the table.

“You understand about books don’t you,” she said wistfully.

“Oh no” said Miriam. “I’ve hardly read anything.”

“I wish you’d put those two down.”

“I don’t know the names of the translations,” announced Miriam with conceited solicitude.

A long loud yawn resounded through the door.

“Better, boysie?” asked Mrs. Orly turning anxiously towards the open door.

“Yes, my love,” said Mr. Orly cheerfully.

“I am glad, boy—I’ll get my things on—the carriage’ll be here in a minute.”

She departed at a run and Mr. Orly came in and sat heavily down in a chair set against the slope of the wall close by and facing Miriam.

“Phoo” he puffed, “I’ve been taking phenacetin all day; you don’t get heads do you?”

Miriam smiled and began preparing a reply.

“How’s it coming in? Totting up, eh?”

“I think so” said Miriam uneasily.

“What’s it totting up to this month? Any idea?”

“No; I can see if you like.”

“Never mind, never mind.... Mrs. O’s been reading ... phew! You’re a lit’ry young lady—d’you know that French chap—Zola—Emmil Zola——” Mr. Orly glanced suspiciously.

“Yes” said Miriam.

“Like ’im?”

“Yes” said Miriam firmly.

“Well—it’s a matter of taste and fancy” sighed Mr. Orly heavily. “Chacun À son goÛt—shake an ass and go, as they say. One’s enough for me. I can’t think why they do it myself—sheer well to call a spade a spade sheer bestiality those French writers—don’t ye think so, eh?” “Well no. I don’t think I can accept that as a summary of French literature.”

“Eh well, it’s beyond me. I suppose I’m not up to it. Behind the times. Not cultured enough. Not cultured enough I guess. Ready dearest?” he said addressing his wife and getting to his feet with a groan. “Miss Hens’n’s a great admirer of Emmil Zola.”

“She says some of his books are pretty, didn’t you, Miss Hens’n. It isn’t fair to judge from one book, Ro.”

“No my love no. Quite right. Quite right. I’m wrong—no doubt. Getting old and soft. Things go on too fast for me.”

“Don’t be so silly, Ro.”

13

Drowsily and automatically Miriam went on rolling tin and gold—sliding a crisp thick foil of tin from the pink tissue paper leaved book on to the serviette ... a firm metallic crackle ... then a silent layer of thin gold ... then more tin ... adjusting the three slippery leaves in perfect superposition without touching them with her hands, cutting the final square into three strips, with the long sharp straight bladed scissors—the edges of the metal adhering to each other as the scissors went along—thinking again with vague distant dreamy amusement of the boy who cut the rubber tyre to mend it—rolling the flat strips with a fold of the serviette, deftly until they turned into neat little twisted crinkled rolls—wondering how she had acquired the knack. She went on and on lazily, unable to stop, sitting back in her chair and working with outstretched arms, until a small fancy soap box was filled with the twists—enough to last the practice for a month or two. The sight filled her with a sense of achievement and zeal. Putting on its lid she placed the soap box on the second chair. Lazily, stupidly, longing for tea—all the important clerical work left undone, Mr. Orly’s surgery to clear up for the day—still she was working in the practice. She glanced approvingly at the soap box ... but there were ages to pass before tea. She did not dare to look at her clock. Had the hall clock struck three? Bending to a drawer she drew out a strip of amadou—offended at the sight of her red wrist coming out of the harsh cheap black sleeve and the fingers bloated by cold. They looked lifeless; no one else’s hands looked so lifeless. Part of the amadou was soft and warm to her touch, part hard and stringy. Cutting out a soft square she cut it rapidly into tiny cubes collecting them in a pleasant flummery heap on the blotting paper—Mr. Hancock should have those; they belonged to his perfect treatment of his patients; it was quite just. Cutting a strip of the harsher part, she pulled and teased it into comparative softness and cut it up into a second pile of fragments. Amadou, gold and tin ... Japanese paper? A horrible torpor possessed her. Why did one’s head get into such a hot fearful state before tea? ... grey stone wall and the side of the projecting glass roofed peak of Mr. Leyton’s surgery ... grey stone wall ... wall ... railings at the top of it ... cold—a cold sky ... it was their time—nine to six—no doubt those people did best who thought of nothing during hours but the work—cheerfully—but they were always pretending—in and out of work hours they pretended. There was something wrong in them and something wrong in the people who shirked. La—te—ta—te—te—ta, she hummed searching her table for relief. Mr. Hancock’s bell sounded and she fled up to the warmth of his room. In a moment Mudie’s cart came and the maid summoned her. There was a pile of books in the hall.... She glanced curiously at the titles worried with the responsibility—’The Sorrows’—that was all right. ‘Secrets of a Stormy Court’ ... that was the sort of thing ... “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” ... one day she must explain to Mr. Orly that that was really “sousiÈre” a thing to hold halfpence. ‘My Reminiscences’ by Count de Something. Perhaps that was one they had put down. The maid presented the volumes to be returned. Taking them Miriam asked her to ask Mr. Hancock if he had anything to change. ‘Cock Lane and Common Sense’ she read ... there was some sort of argument in that ... the ‘facts’ of some case ... it would sneer at something, some popular idea ... it was probably by some doctor or scientific man ... but that was not the book.... ‘The Earth’ ... Emile Zola. She flapped the book open and hurriedly read a few phrases. The hall pulsated curiously. She flushed all over her body. “There’s nothing for Mr. Hancock, miss.” “All right; these can go and these are to be kept,” she said indistinctly. Wandering back to her room she repeated the phrases in her mind in French. They seemed to clear up and take shelter—somehow they were terse and acceptable and they were secret and secure—but English people ought not to read them; in English. It was—outrageous. English men. The French man had written them simply ... French logic ... English men were shy and suggestive about these things—either that or breezy ... “filth” which was almost worse. The Orlys ought not to read them at all ... it was a good thing the book was out of the house ... they would forget. But she would not forget. Her empty room glanced with a strange confused sadness; the clearing up upstairs was not quite done; but she could not go upstairs again yet. Three-fifteen; the afternoon had turned; her clock was a little slow too. The warm quiet empty den was waiting for the tea-tray. Clearing the remnants from her table she sat down again. The heavy stillness of the house closed in.... She opened the drawer of stationery. Various kinds of notepaper lay slid together in confusion; someone had been fumbling there. The correspondence cards propped against the side of the drawer would never stay in their proper places. With comatose meticulousness she put the whole drawer in order, replenishing it from a drawer of reserve packets, until it was so full that nothing could slide. She surveyed the result with satisfaction; and shut the drawer. She would tidy one drawer every afternoon.... She opened the drawer once more and looked again. To keep it like that would mean never using the undermost cards and notepaper. That would not do ... change them all round sometimes. She sat for a while inertly and presently lazily roused herself with the idea of going upstairs. Pausing in front of a long three-shelved whatnot filling the space between the door and the narrow many drawered specimen case that stood next her table she idly surveyed its contents. Nothing but piles of British Dental Journals, Proceedings of the Odontological Society, circulars from the Dental Manufacturing Companies. Propping her elbows on the upper shelf of the what-not she stood turning leaves.

14

“Tea up?”

“Don’t know” said Miriam irritably, passing the open door. He could see she had only just come down and could not possibly know. The soft jingling of the cups shaken together on a tray by labouring footsteps came from the basement stairs. Mr. Leyton’s hurried clattering increased. Miriam waited impatiently by her table. The maid padded heavily through swinging the door of the den wide with her elbow. When she had retired, Miriam sauntered warm and happy almost before she was inside the door into the den. With her eyes on the tea-tray she felt the afternoon expand.... “There’s a Burma girl a settin’ and I know she thinks of me.” ... “Come you back you British soldier, come you back to Mandalay.” Godfrey’s tune was much the best; stiff, like the words, the other was only sing-song. Pushing off the distraction she sat down near the gently roaring blaze of the gas fire in a low little chair, upholstered in cretonne almost patternless with age. The glow of the fire went through and through her. If she had tea at once, everything would be richer and richer, but things would move on, and if they came back she would have finished and would have to go. The face of the railway clock fixed against the frontage of the gallery at the far end of the room said four-fifteen. They had evidently ordered tea to be a quarter of an hour late and might be in any minute ... this curious feeling that the room belonged to her more than to the people who owned it, so that they were always intruders.... Leaving with difficulty the little feast untouched ... a Dundee cake from Buszards ... she browsed rapidly, her eyes roaming from thing to thing ... the shields and assegais grouped upon the raised dull gold papering of the high opposite wall, the bright beautiful coloured bead skirts spread out amongst curious carved tusks and weapons, the large cool placid gold Buddha reclining below them with his chin on his hand and his elbow on a red velvet cushion, on the Japanese cabinet; the Japanese cupboard fixed above Mrs. Orly’s writing table, the fine firm carved ivory on its panels; the tall vase of Cape gooseberries flaring on the top of the cottage piano under the shadow of the gallery; the gallery with its upper mystery, the happy clock fastened against its lower edge, always at something after four, the door set back in the wall, leading into her far-away midday room, the light falling from the long high frosted window along the confusion of Mr. Orly’s bench, noisy as she looked at it with the sound of metal tools falling with a rattle, the drone and rattle of the motor lathe, Mr. Orly’s cheerful hummings and whistlings, the bench swept down the length of the room to her side ... the movable shaded electric lamp; Mr. Orly’s African tobacco pouch bunched underneath it on the edge of the bench near the old leather armchair near to the fire, facing the assegais; the glass-doored bookcase on either side of the fireplace, the strange smooth gold on the strips of Burmese wood fastened along the shelves, the clear brown light of the room on the gold, the curious lettering sweeping across the gold.

“Tea? Good.” Mr. Leyton pulled up a chair and plumped into it digging at his person and dragging out the tails of his coat with one hand, holding a rumpled newspaper at reading length. When his coat-tails were free he scratched his head and scrubbed vigorously at his short brown beard.

“You had tea?” he said to Miriam’s motionlessness, without looking up.

“No—let’s have tea,” said Miriam. Why should he assume that she should pour out the tea....

“I say that’s a nasty one” said Mr. Leyton hysterically and began reading in a high hysterical falsetto.

Miriam began pouring out. Mr. Leyton finished his passage with a little giggling shriek of laughter and fumbled for bread and butter with his eyes still on the newspaper. Miriam sipped her hot tea. The room darkled in the silence. Everything intensified. She glanced impatiently at Mr. Leyton’s bent unconscious form. His shirt and the long straight narrow ends of his tie made a bulging curve above his low-cut waistcoat. The collar of his coat stood away from his bent neck and its tails were bunched up round his hips. His trousers were so hitched up that his bent knees strained against the harsh crude Rope Brothers cloth. The ends of his trousers peaked up in front, displaying loose rolls of black sock and the whole of his anatomical walking-shoes. Miriam heard his busily masticating jaws and dreaded his operations with his tea-cup. A wavering hand came out and found the cup and clasped it by the rim, holding it at the edge of the lifted newspaper. She busied herself with cutting stout little wedges of cake. Mr. Leyton sipped, gasping after each loud quilting gulp; a gasp, and the sound of a moustache being sucked. Mr. Hancock’s showing out bell rang. Mr. Leyton plunged busily round, finishing his cup in a series of rapid gulps. “Kike?” he said.

“M” said Miriam, “jolly kike—did you finish Mr. Buck?”

“More or less——”

“Did you boil the remains?” “Boiled every blessed thing—and put the serviette in k’bolic.”

Miriam hid her relief and poured him out another cup.

Mr. Hancock came in through the open door and quickly up to the tea-tray. Pouring out a cup he held the teapot suspended, “another cup?”

“No thanks, not just at present” said Miriam getting to her feet with a morsel of cake in her fingers.

“Plenty of time for my things” said Mr. Hancock sitting down in Mr. Orly’s chair with his tea, his flat compact slightly wrinkled and square-toed patent leather shoes gleamed from under the rims of his soft dark grey beautifully cut trousers with a pleasant shine as he sat back comfortable and unlounging, with crossed knees in the deep chair.

Mr. Leyton had got to his feet.

“Busy?” he said rapidly munching. “I say I’ve had that man Buck this afternoon.”

“Oh yes” said Mr. Hancock brushing a crumb from his knee.

“You know—that case I told you about.”

“Oh yes?” said Mr. Hancock with a clear glance and a slight tightening of the face.

Miriam made for the door. Mr. Hancock was not encouraging the topic. Mr. Leyton’s cup came down with a clatter. “I’m fearfully rushed” he said. “I must be off.” He caught Miriam up in the hall. “I say tea must have been fearfully late. I’ve got to get down to headquarters by five sharp.”

“You go on first” said Miriam standing aside.

Mr. Leyton fled up through the house three steps at a time.

15

When she came down again intent on her second cup of tea in the empty brown den a light had been switched on, driving the dark afternoon away. The crayon drawings behind the piano shone out on the walls of the dark square space under the gallery as she hesitated in the doorway. There was someone in the dim brightness of the room. She turned noiselessly towards her table.

“Come and have some more tea Miss Hens’n.”

Miriam went in with alacrity. The light was on in the octagonal brass framed lantern that hung from the skylight and shed a soft dim radiance through its old glass. Mrs. Orly still in her bonnet and fur-lined cape was sitting drinking tea in the little old cretonne chair. She raised a tired flushed face and smiled brightly at Miriam as she came down the room.

“I’m dying for another cup; I had to fly off and clear up Mr. Hancock’s things.”

“Mr. Hancock busy? Have some cake, it’s rather a nice one.” Mrs. Orly cut a stout little wedge.

Clearing away the newspaper Miriam took possession of Mr. Leyton’s chair.

Mr. Orly swung in shutting the door behind him and down the room peeling off his frock coat as he came.

“Tea darling?”

“Well m’love, since you’re so pressing.”

Mr. Orly switched on the lamp on the corner of the bench and subsided into his chair his huge bulk poised lightly and alertly, one vast leg across the other knee.

“’Scuse my shirt-sleeves Miss Hens’n. I say I’ve got a new song—like to try it presently or are ye too busy?”

Poised between the competing interests of many worlds Miriam basked in the friendly tones.

“Well I have got rather a fearful lot of things to do.”

“Come and try it now, d’ye mind?”

“Have your tea Ro, darling.”

“Right my love, right, right, always right—Hancock busy?”

“Yes; he has two more patients after this one.”

“Marvellous man.”

“Mr. Hancock never gets rushed or flurried does he? He’s always been the same ever since we’ve known him.” “He’s very even and steady outwardly” said Miriam indifferently.

“You think it’s only outward?”

“Well I mean he’s really frightfully sensitive.”

“Just so; it’s his coolness carries him through, self-command, I wish I’d got it.”

“You’d miss other things boysie; you can’t have it both ways.”

“Right m’love—right. I don’t understand him. D’you think anyone does, Miss Hens’n—really—I mean. D’you understand him?”

“Well you see I haven’t known him very long——”

“No—but you come from the same district and know his relatives.”

“The same Berkshire valley and his cousins happened to be my people’s oldest friends.”

“Well don’t ye see, that makes all the difference—I say I heard a splendid one this afternoon. D’you think I could tell Miss Hens’n that one Nelly?—you’re not easily shocked, are you?”

“I’ve never been shocked in my life” said Miriam getting to her feet.

“Must ye go? Shall we just try this over?”

“Well if it isn’t too long.”

“Stop and have a bit of dinner with us can ye?”

Miriam made her excuse, pleading an engagement and sat down to the piano. The song was a modern ballad with an easy impressive accompaniment, following the air. The performance went off easily and well, Mr. Orly’s clear trained baritone ringing out persuasively into the large room. Weathering a second invitation to spend the evening she got away to her room.

16

Her mind was alight with the sense of her many beckoning interests, aglow with fulness of life. The thin piercing light cast upon her table by the single five candle power bulb, drawn low and screened by a green glass shade was warm and friendly. She attacked her letters, despatching the appointments swiftly and easily in a bold convincing hand and drafted a letter to Mrs. Hermann that she carried with a glow of satisfaction to Mr. Hancock’s room. When his room was cleared in preparation for his last patient it was nearly six o’clock. She began entering his day-book in the ledger. The boy coming up for the letters brought two dentures to be packed and despatched by registered post from Vere Street before six o’clock. “They’ll be ready by the time you’ve got your boots on” said Miriam and packed her cases brilliantly in a mood of deft-handed concentration. Jimmy clattered up the stairs as she was stamping the labels. When he fled with them she gave a general sigh and surveyed the balance of her day with a responsible cheerful wicked desperation; her mind leaping forward to her evening. The day books would not be done, even Mr. Hancock’s would have to go up unentered; she had not the courage to investigate the state of the cash book; Mr. Leyton’s room was ready for the morning; she ran through to Mr. Orly’s room and performed a rapid perfunctory tidying up; many little things were left; his depleted stores must be refilled in the morning; she glanced at his appointment book, no patient so far until ten. She left the room with her everyday guilty consciousness that hardly anything in it was up to the level of Mr. Hancock’s room ... look after Hancock, I’m used to fending for myself ... but he knew she did not do her utmost to keep the room going. There were times when he ran short of stores in the midst of a sitting. That could be avoided.

17

When Miriam entered his room at half past six Mr. Hancock was switching off the lights about the chair. A single light shone over his desk. The fire was nearly out.

“Still here?” “Yes” said Miriam switching on a light over the instrument cabinet.

“I should leave those things tonight if I were you.”

“It isn’t very late.”

She could go on, indefinitely, in this confident silence, preparing for the next day. He sat making up his day-book and would presently come upon Mrs. Hermann’s letter. As long as he was there the day lingered. Its light had left the room. The room was colourless and dark except where the two little brilliant circles of light made bright patches of winter evening. Their two figures quietly at work meant the quiet and peace of the practice; the full, ended day, to begin again to-morrow in broad daylight in this same room. The room was full of their quiet continuous companionship. It was getting very cold. He would be going soon.

He stood up, switching off his light. “That will do excellently” he said with an amused smile, placing Mrs. Hermann’s letter on the flap of the instrument cabinet and wandering into the gloomy spaces.

“Well. I’ll say good night.”

“Good night” murmured Miriam.

Leaving the dried instruments in a heap with a wash leather flung over them she gathered up the books switched the room into darkness, felt its promise of welcome and trotted downstairs through the quiet house. The front door shut quietly on Mr. Hancock as she reached the hall. She flew to get away. In five minutes the books were in the safe and everything locked up. The little mirror on the wall, scarcely lit by the single globe over the desk just directed the angle of her hat and showed the dim strange eager outline of her unknown face. She fled down the hall past Mr. Leyton’s room and the opening to the forgotten basement, between the heavy closed door of Mr. Orly’s room and the quiet scrolled end of the balustrade and past the angle of the high dark clock staring with its unlit face down the length of the hall, between the high oak chest and the flat oak coffer confronting each other in the glooms thrown by Mrs. Orly’s tall narrow striped Oriental curtains; she saw them standing in straight folds, the beautiful height and straightness of their many coloured stripes, as they must have been before the outside stripe of each had been cut and used as a tie-up; and was out beyond the curtains in the brightly lit square facing the door. The light fell on the rich edge of the Turkey carpet and the groove of the bicycle stand. In the corner stood the blue and white pipe, empty of umbrellas. Her hand grasped the machine-turned edge of the small flat circular knob that released the door ... brahma; that was the word, at last.... The door opened and closed with its familiar heavy wooden firmness, neatly, with a little rattle of its chain. Her day scrolled up behind her. She halted, trusted and responsible, for a long second in the light flooding the steps from behind the door.

The pavement was under her feet and the sparsely lamplit night all round her. She restrained her eager steps to a walk. The dark houses and the blackness between the lamps were elastic about her.