She found herself standing elbow to elbow with Harriett. Warm currents came to her from Harriett’s body; she moved her elbow against Harriett’s to draw her attention. Harriett turned a scorched cheek and a dilated unseeing eye. Their hands dropped and met. Miriam felt the quivering of firm, strong fingers and the warm metal of rings. She grasped the matronly hand with the whole strength of her own. Harriett must remember ... all this wedding was nothing.... She was Harriett ... not the Mrs. Ducayne Bob Greville had just been talking to about Curtain Lectures and the Rascality of the Genus Homo ... she must remember all the years of being together, years of nights side by side ... night turning to day for both of them, at the same moment. She gave her hand a little shake. Harriett made a little skipping movement and grinned her own ironic grin. It was all right. They were quite alone and irreverent; they two; the festive crowd was playing a game for their amusement. They laughed without a sound as they had so often done in church. The air that encircled them was the air of their childhood. 18 Gerald’s voice sounded near. It made no break in their union though Harriett welcomed it, clearing her throat with a businesslike cough. “Time you changed, Mrs. La Reine,” said Gerald, in a frightened friendly voice. “Oh, lor, is it?” ... that kindliness was only in Harriett’s voice when she had hurt someone. ... The edge of Gerald’s voice, kind to everyone, would always be broken when he spoke to Harriett. She would always be this young absurd Harriett to him, always. He would go on fastening her boots for her tenderly, and go happily about his hobbies. She would never hear him call her “my dear.” That old-fashioned mock-polite insolence of men ... paterfamilias. 19 The four of them were together in a room again, fastening and hooking and adjusting; standing about before mirrors. We’ve all grown up together ... we can admit it now ... we’re admitting it. Everything clear, back to the beginning; happy and good. The room was still with the hush of its fresh draperies, hemming them in. Beautiful immortal forms moved in the room, reaping ... voices, steady and secure, said nothing but the necessary things, borne down with wealth, all the wealth there was ... all the laughter and certainty. Immortality. Nothing could die. They saw and knew everything. Each tone was a confession and a song of truth. They need never meet and speak again. They had known. The voices of Sarah and Harriett would go on ... marked with fresh things.... Her own and Eve’s would remain, separate, to grow broken and false and unrecognisable in the awful struggle for money. No matter. The low secure untroubled tone of a woman’s voice. There was nothing like it on earth.... If you had once heard it ... in your own voice, and the voice of another woman responding ... everything was there.