bowed and looked into eyes set far back in the thin mask of the face. Her eyes passed a question from the expressionless eyes to the motionless expressionless face. How could he be a composer; looking so ... vanishing? Strelinsky ... Morceau pour piano ... that must be _he_ standing here; did you write this she said abruptly and hummed the beginning. It sounded shapeless and toneless, but there was a little tune just ahead. She broke off short of it not sure that he was attending; the world burst into laughter; his face turned slowly and stopped looking downwards across her, his eyes fixed in a dead repetition of the laughter in which she was drowning. He stood in space in a faded coat and hat, a colourless figure clothed by her feebleness in lively dignity and wisdom ... grouped inaccessibly beyond the vast space were solid tables filled with judges; dim figures stood in judgment in the amber light under the gallery where palms stood; she was drowning alone, surrounded by a distant circle of palms. Eleven. We must go miss stated Mr. Mendizabal cordially. Miriam rose. The tide of café life flowed all round her. She wandered blissfully out through the misty smoke-wreathed golden light, threading her way amongst the tables towards the black and gold of the streets. Far away behind her, staying in the evening, Strelinsky blocked the view, moving, fixed avertedly, with eyes in his shoulders along an endless narrowing distance of café. CHAPTER VII Miriam found her old prayer-book and scribbled her name on the flyleaf.... Bella de Castro writing _from mother_ under her name in her bible ... _feeling_ something, privately, not knowing that anyone would see it.... The sunlight pouring in on the thin bible page; the words written plumply with one of Bella's blunt uncared-for pencils. Her thick ropy black plait, brilliant oily Italian eyes in her long fat handsome face; staring out of the window sullenly waiting for schooldays to be at an end; her handsome horrible brother on horseback; just the same; the high-water marks above her wrists when she washed her hands, and then, from mother, stubbed carefully, _meaning_. The pencilled _Miriam_ gave a false meaning to the prayer-book. There was no indiarubber, she would have to take it down as it was. It was a letter, written to Dr. von Heber, supposed to be written when she was a girl.... She carried the book downstairs. The Baileys were still sitting by the fire with their backs to Dr. von Heber standing alone in the twilight in the middle of the room. She came forward, handing the book stiffly and sat busily down to the piano again, angrily recording his quiet formal thanks and silent swift departure. She began playing where she had left off; telling Dr. von Heber as he went downstairs that he had come up and made a scene and interrupted her; that her chosen evening was to sit, with the Baileys, playing the piano; that she was not a church-goer.