She could not stay. She could not have tackled him if she had stayed. Anger was perhaps as funny as embarrassment. He would have been shocked at the idea of her quietly considering the results of Schenck’s theory, if it proved to be true; beyond her ken, indeed. It was hateful to have to leave that; he _ought_ to be robbed of the one thing that he imagined gave him an advantage in the presence of women. The women in his world _would_ be embarrassed by the discussion of anything to do with the reproduction of the race. _Why?_ Why were the women embarrassed and the men always suggestive and facetious? If only the men could realise what they admitted by their tone; what attitude towards life.... It was a bitter east-wind; the worst kind of day there was. All along Oxford Street were women in furs, serene, with smooth warm faces untroubled by the bleak black wind, perhaps even enjoying the cold. Miriam struggled along, towards the cruel east, shivering, her face shrivelled and frozen and burning, her brain congealed. If she were free she could at least have a cup of coffee and get warm and go into the Museum and be warm all the afternoon. To meet a stranger and have to be active and sociable when she was at her worst. He would be wrapped in the advantage of a fur-lined coat, or at least astrachan, and be able to think and speak. He would wonder what was the matter; even his careless foreign friendliness would not survive her frightful appearance. Yet when a clock told her the appointed time was past, the torment of the wind grew sharper in the thought that she might miss him. There was the Holborn Library, as he had described. There was no one there, the pavement was empty; he had given her up and gone; had perhaps never come. She was relieved. She had done her best. Fate had saved her; her afternoon was her own. But she must show herself, perhaps he might be sheltering just inside the door. The doorway was empty. There was a man leaning against the lamppost. She scanned him unwillingly, lest he should turn into Mr. Shatov; but he produced only the details of the impression she had taken before she glanced, a shabby, sinister-looking Tottenham Court Road foreign loafer, in yellow boots, an overcoat of an evil shade of brown and a waiter’s black-banded grey felt hat; but she had paused and glanced and of course his eye was immediately upon her and his lounging figure upright as she swept across the pavement to gain the road and flee the displeasing contact. He almost ran into her; trotting .... _ah_, I am glad .... it _was_ Mr. Shatov......