As she was treating with the messenger in the little mauve and white hall, Mrs. Corrie came out and tapped her on the shoulder. Turning, Miriam found her smiling and mysterious. “We’re going by the 5.30,” she whispered. “Would you like to go for a walk for half an hour and come back _here_?” “_Rather!_” said Miriam heartily, with a break in her voice and feeling utterly crushed. The beautiful clear room. She loved it and belonged to it. She was turned out. “All right,” smiled Mrs. Corrie encouragingly and disappeared. Under the eyes of the messenger and the servants who were coming out of the boudoir laden with hat boxes, she got herself out through the door. CHAPTER VI 1 The West End street ... grey buildings rising on either side, feeling away into the approaching distance--angles sharp against the sky ... softened angles of buildings against other buildings ... high moulded angles soft as crumb, with deep undershadows ... creepers fraying from balconies ... strips of window blossoms across the buildings, scarlet, yellow, high up; a confusion of lavender and white pouching out along a dipping sill ... a wash of green creeper up a white painted house front ... patches of shadow and bright light.... Sounds of visible near things streaked and scored with broken light as they moved, led off into untraced distant sounds ... chiming together. 2 Wide golden streaming Regent Street was quite near. Some near narrow street would lead into it. 3 Flags of pavement flowing along--smooth clean grey squares and oblongs, faintly polished, shaping and drawing away--sliding into each other.... I am part of the dense smooth clean paving stone ... sunlit; gleaming under dark winter rain; shining under warm sunlit rain, sending up a fresh stony smell ... always there ... dark and light ... dawn, stealing.... 4 Life streamed up from the close dense stone. With every footstep she felt she could fly. 5 The little dignified high-built cut-through street, with its sudden walled-in church, swept round and opened into brightness and a clamour of central sounds ringing harshly up into the sky. 6 The pavement of heaven. To walk along the radiant pavement of sunlit Regent Street forever. 7 She sped along looking at nothing. Shops passed by, bright endless caverns screened with glass ... the bright teeth of a grand piano running along the edge of its darkness, a cataract of light pouring down its raised lid; forests of hats; dresses, shining against darkness, bright headless crumpling stalks; sly, silky, ominous furs; metals, cold and clanging, brandishing the light; close prickling fire of jewels ... strange people who bought these things, touched and bought them.