This outburst strengthened her: needs cried for satisfaction in her body, the chief of these being movement and air. She walked to the window and looked out on the cloudless September night; there was a chill in the air, imparting to its sweetness a touch of austerity. Mavis wondered from what peaceful scenes it came, to what untroubled places it was going. The thought that she was remote from the stillness for which her heart hungered exasperated her; she closed the window in order to spare herself being tortured by the longing which the night air awoke in her being. The atmosphere of the room was foul when compared with the air she had just breathed; it seemed to get her by the throat, to be on the point of stifling her. The next moment she had pinned on her hat, caught up her gloves, and scurried into the street. Two minutes later she was in Oxford Street, where she was at once merged into a stream of girls, a stream almost as wide as the pavement, which was sluggishly moving in the direction of the Park. This flow was composed of every variety of girl: tall, stumpy, medium, dark, fair, auburn, with dispositions as varied as their appearances. Many were aglow with hope and youthful ardour; others were well over their first fine frenzy of young blood. There were wise virgins, foolish virgins, vain girls, clever girls, elderly girls, dull girls, laughing girls, amorous girls, spiteful girls, girls with the toothache, girls radiantly happy in the possession of some new, cheap finery: all wending their way towards the Marble Arch. Most walked in twos and threes, a few singly; some of these latter were hurrying and darting amongst the listless walk of the others in their eagerness to keep appointments with men. Whatever their age, disposition, or condition, they were all moved by a common desire--to enjoy a crowded hour of liberty after the toil and fret of the day. As Mavis moved with the flow of this current, she noticed how it was constantly swollen by the addition of tributaries, which trickled from nearly every door in Oxford Street, till at last the stream overflowed the broad pavement and became so swollen that it seemed to carry everything before it. Here were gathered girls from nearly every district in the United Kingdom. The broken home, stepmothers, too many in family, the fascination which London exercises for the country-grown girl--all and each of these reasons were responsible for all this womanhood of a certain type pouring down Oxford Street at eight o'clock in the evening. Each of them was the centre of her little universe, and, on the whole, they were mostly happy, their gladness being largely ignorance of more fortunate conditions of life. Ill-fed, under-paid, they were insignificant parts of the great industrial machine which had got them in its grip, so that their function was to make rich men richer, or to pay 10 per cent, dividends to shareholders who were careless how these were earned.