“It is not a question of quarrelling, or even discussion. You have told me all I want to know. I see exactly where you stand; and for my part it _decides_, many things. I don’t say this to amuse myself or because I want to, but because it is the only thing I can possibly do.” “Miriam. In this spirit nothing can be said at all. Let us rather go and have tea.” Poor little man, perhaps he was weary; troubled in this strange grey corner of a country not his own, isolated with an unexpected anger. They had tea in a small dark room behind a little shop. It was close packed with an odorous dampness. Miriam sat frozen, appalled by the presence of a negro. He sat near by, huge, bent snorting and devouring, with a huge black bottle at his side. Mr. Shatov’s presence was shorn of its alien quality. He was an Englishman in the fact that he and she could _not_ sit eating in the neighbourhood of this marshy jungle. But they were, they had. They would have. Once away from this awful place she would never think of it again. Yet the man had hands and needs and feelings. Perhaps he could sing. He was at a disadvantage, an outcast. There was something that ought to be said to him. She could not think what it was. In his oppressive presence it was impossible to think at all. Every time she sipped her bitter tea it seemed that before she should have replaced her cup, vengeance would have sprung from the dark corner. Everything hurried so. There was no _time_ to shake off the sense of contamination. It _was_ contamination. The man’s presence was an outrage on something of which he was not aware. It would be possible to make him aware. When his fearful face, which she sadly knew she could not bring herself to regard a second time, was out of sight, the outline of his head was desolate, like the contemplated head of any man alive. Men ought not to have faces. Their real selves abode in the expressions of their heads and brows. Below, their faces were moulded by deceit...... While she had pursued her thoughts, advantage had fallen to the black form in the corner. It was as if the black face grinned, crushing her thread of thought. “You see, Miriam, if instead of beating me, you will tell me your _thoughts_, it is quite possible that mine may be modified. There is at least nothing of the bigot in me.”