II

wrong. The sign that they were wrong was the way they went about being deliberately cheerful and sociable. That was worse than anything; the refusal to face the truth. But at least they could endure people.⁠ ⁠… If one could not endure anyone one ought to be dead⁠ ⁠… to sit staring in front of one until one was dead⁠ ⁠… the wardrobe did not disagree. She averted her eyes as from an observer. They fell upon her hopeless person dressed in the clothes in which she moved about in the world. She was bitterly cold. But she sat on unable to summon courage to turn and face her room. Her eyes wandered vacantly back to the panels and down to the drawer below them and back again. The warm quiet booming of a gong came up through the house. She got to her feet and stood listening in amazement. Mrs. Bailey had instituted a boardinghouse gong! She went out on to the landing; the gong ceased and rattled gently against its framework released from hands that had stilled its reverberation. A voice sounded in the hall and then the dining-room door closed and there was silence. They were having tea. Of course; every day; life going on down there in the dining-room. Involuntarily her feet were on the stairs. She went down the narrow flight holding to the balustrade to steady the stumbling of her benumbed limbs. What was she doing? Going down to Mrs. Bailey; going to stand for a moment close by Mrs. Bailey’s tea-tray. No; impossible to let the Baileys save her; having done nothing for herself. Impossible to be beholden to the Baileys for anything. Restoration by them would be restoration to shame. She had moved unconsciously. Her life was still her own. She was in the world, in a house, going down some stairs. For the present the pretence of living could go on. She could not go back to her room; nor forward to any other room. She pushed blindly on, bitter anger growing within her. She had moved towards the Baileys. It was irrevocable. She had departed from all her precedents. She would always know it. Wherever she found herself it would always be there, at the root of her consciousness, shaming her, showing in everything she did or said. Halfway downstairs she restrained her heavy movements and began to go swiftly and