It was well for Victoria that she was an optimist and a good sleeper, for November had waned into December before anything happened to disturb the tenor of her life. For a whole fortnight she had heard nothing from Lady Rockham or from Edward. She had written to Molly but had received no answer. All day long the knocker fell with brutal emphasis upon the doors of Portsea Place and brought her nothing. She did not think much or hope much. She did nothing and spent little. Her only companion was Mrs Bell, who still hovered round her mysterious lodger, so ladylike and so quiet. She passed hours sometimes at the window watching the stream of life in Portsea Place. The stream did not flow very swiftly; its principal eddies vanished by midday with the milkman and the butcher. The postman recurred more often but he did not count. Now and then the policeman passed and spied suspiciously into the archway where the landladies no longer met. Cabs trotted into it now and then to change horses. Victoria watched alone. Beyond Mrs Bell, she seemed to know nobody. The young man downstairs continued to be invisible, and contented himself with slamming the door. The young lady in the back room continued to wash discreetly and to snore gently at night. Sometimes Victoria ventured abroad to be bitten by the blast. Sometimes she strayed over the town in the intervals of food. She had to exercise caution in this, for an aspect of the lodging house fire had only lately dawned upon her. If she did not order it at all she was met on the threshold by darkness and cold; if she ordered it for a given time she was so often late that she returned to find it dead or kept up wastefully at the rate of sixpence a scuttle. This trouble was chronic; on bitter days it seemed to dog her footsteps. She had almost grown accustomed to loneliness. Alone she watched at her window or paced the streets. She had established a quasi-right to a certain seat at the Italian restaurant where the waiters had ceased to speculate as to who she was. The demoralisation of unemployment was upon her. She did not cast up her accounts; she rose late, made no plans. She slept and ate, careless of the morrow.