Miriam let herself cautiously in. The whole house was hers; she was a boarder ; but the right to linger freely in any part of it was bought by Sissie’s French lessons and being Sissie’s teacher meant that the Baileys could approach familiarly at any moment … all her privileges were bought with a heavy price, here and at Wimpole Street … it’s us; our family; always masquerading. But the lessons made opportunities of being affable to the Baileys; removing the need for seeking them out purposely from time to time. Cut and dried. I’ve pa triotic ballads cut and dried. I’m cut and dried, everybody thinks. Moving and speaking stiffly, the stamp of my family, the minute anything is expected of me. Nobody knows me. I grow more and more unknown and more and more like what people think of me. … But I know; and things go on coming; scraps of other people’s things. No one in the world could imagine what it is to me to have this house; the fag-end of the Baileys’ stock-in-trade. God couldn’t know, completely. There’s something wrong about it; but damn, I can’t help it. In my secret self I should love a prison. Walls. What are walls?
If she scuffed her muddy shoes too cheerfully someone would appear at the dining-room door. Beyond the gaslight pouring down on to the smeary marble of the hall table and glimmering against the threatening dining-room door the dim staircase beckoned her up into darkness. A few steps and she would be going upstairs. Where? What for? Hgh— hee ! at the far end of the passage beyond the hall. … There was a line of bright light there, coming through the chink of the little door usually hidden in the darkness beyond where the Baileys disappeared down the basement stairs. Then there was a room there. … The little door was pushed open and a man’s figure stood outlined against the bright light and disappeared, shutting the door. There had been a table and a lamp upon it …