III

the sound of the laugh rang in her head; a single lively deep-chested note followed by a falsetto note that curved hysterically up. Men; gentlemen. How long had they been there? They would not stay. How had they come? Where had Mrs. Bailey found them? Had they already found out that it was not their sort of house? Whom were they afraid of shocking with their refinement and freedom? They were making a bright little world in there by feeling themselves surrounded by people who would be shocked. They did not know there was someone there they could not shock.⁠ ⁠… She imagined herself in the doorway⁠ ⁠… hullo ! Fancy you here .⁠ ⁠… The dining-room door had opened and Mrs. Bailey was standing in the hall with the door open behind her. Miriam was not prepared with a refusal of the invitation to come in. She glanced over Mrs. Bailey’s shoulder and saw the two girls sitting at the fireside. Two letters on the hall table addressed to the Norwegian told her that the Baileys were alone. She yielded to Mrs. Bailey’s delighted manner and went in. She would stay, keeping on her outdoor things, long enough to hear about the new people. The close sickly sweet air of the room closed oppressively round her heavy garments⁠—Here you are young lady sit here⁠—said Mrs. Bailey piloting her to a chair in front of the fire. There was a stranger sitting at the fireside. Mr. Mendizabble murmured Mrs. Bailey as Miriam sat down. Miriam’s affronted eyes took in the figure of a man sitting on the wooden stool crowded in between the mantelpiece and the easy chair occupied by Sissie; a man from a café⁠ ⁠… a foreign waiter in his best clothes, sheeny stripy harsh pale grey, a crimson waistcoat showing up the gleam of a gold watch-chain, and crimson cloth slippers; an Italian, a Frenchman, a French-Swiss. He was sitting bent conversationally forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped; quite at home. They had evidently been sitting there all the evening. The air was thick with their intercourse. Miriam received an abrupt nod in answer to her murmur and her stiff bow and followed with resentful curiosity the little foreign tune the man began humming far away in his head. He had not even glanced her way and the tune was