It was strange to be able to go in.... Going in to see an employee was not the right way to go into a west-end shop.... There _was_ Eve; standing badly in a droopy black dress on a bare wet wooden floor. Cut flowers in stone jam pots, masses of greenery lying on a wet table. Hulloh aren't your _feet_ wet demanded Miriam irritably. Eve started and turned, looking. She was exhausted and excited, grappling dreamily with abrupt instructions with a conservatory smell competing with them; trying to become part of a clever arrangement to collect the conservatory smell for sale. She stepped slenderly forward; all her old Eve manner, but determined to guard against disturbance; making sounds without speaking, and the faint shape of a tired smile. She was worn out with the fatigue of trying to make herself into something else, but liking it and determined not to be reminded of other things. Even her hair seemed to be changed. Full of pictures of Eve, gracefully dressed and with piled brown hair Miriam's eyes passed in fury over the skimpy untidy sham shop-assistant, beginning a failure defensively, _imagining_ behind it that she was taking hold of London.... Won't you catch _cold_? You get used to it mouthed Eve nervously turning her head away and waiting, fumbling a scattered spray of smilax. Eve had always loved smilax. Did it seem the same to her now? Fancy _you_ said Miriam, in all this damp. They were both miserable and Eve was not going to put it right. All her strength and interest was for this new thing. Do you like it? said Miriam beginning again. Yes awfully flushed Eve looking as if she were going to cry. It was too late. I suppose its awfully interesting asked Miriam formally, opening a conversation with a stranger. Mps said Eve warmly I simply love it. It makes you frightfully tired at first, but I find I can do things I never dreamed I could. I don't _mind_ standing in the wet a bit now. You have to if you're obliged to. Eve was _liking_ hardness imposed by other people. _Liking_ the prices of her new life. Accepting them without resentment. People would despise and like her for that. Perhaps she would succeed in staying on if her strength did not give way. Her graceful dresses and leisurely brown hair going further and further away.... Do you _serve_? Ssh. I'm learning to. Eve would not look, and wanted her to be gone. I'm free for lunch said Miriam snappily, holding to the disappearing glory of her first coming out into London in the middle of a week-day. Eve should have guessed and stopped being anything but Eve being taken out to lunch. We could go to an A.B.C. Oh I can't come _out_ murmured Eve ignoringly. 3