Eve’s shop was a west-end blaze of flowers. The window was blocked with flowers in jars, tied up in large bundles. In front were gilt baskets of hothouse flowers. Propped in the middle were a large flower anchor and a flower horseshoe, both trimmed with large bows of white satin ribbon—women in white satin evening dresses with trains, bowing from platforms—on either side were tight dance buttonholes pinned on to heart-shaped velvet mounts.
It was strange to be able to go in. … Going in to see an employee was not the right way to go into a west-end shop. … There was Eve; standing badly in a droopy black dress on a bare wet wooden floor. Cut flowers in stone jam pots, masses of greenery lying on a wet table. Hulloh aren’t your feet wet demanded Miriam irritably. Eve started and turned, looking. She was exhausted and excited, grappling dreamily with abrupt instructions with a conservatory smell competing with them; trying to become part of a clever arrangement to collect the conservatory smell for sale. She stepped slenderly forward; all her old Eve manner, but determined to guard against disturbance; making sounds without speaking, and the faint shape of a tired smile. She was worn out with the fatigue of trying to make herself into something else, but liking it and determined not to be reminded of other things. Even her hair seemed to be changed. Full of pictures of Eve, gracefully dressed and with piled brown hair Miriam’s eyes passed in fury over the skimpy untidy sham shop-assistant, beginning a failure defensively, imagining behind it that she was taking hold of London. … Won’t you catch cold ? You get used to it mouthed Eve nervously turning her head away and waiting, fumbling a scattered spray of smilax. Eve had always loved smilax. Did it seem the same to her now? Fancy you said Miriam, in all this damp. They were both miserable and Eve was not going to put it right. All her strength and interest was for this new thing. Do you like it? said Miriam beginning