They made their way back to the street through a long low roomful of men drinking at little tables. Heavy clouds of smoke hung and moved in the air and mingled with the steady odour of German food, braten, onion and butter-sodden, beer and rich sour bread. A tinkling melody supported by rhythmic time-marking bass notes that seemed to thump the wooden floor came from a large glass-framed musical-box. The dark rafters ran low, just above them. Faces glanced towards them as they all filed avertedly through the room. There were two or three guttural greetings--"N' Morgen, meine Damen...." A large limber woman met them in the front room with their bill and stood talking to Fräulein as the girls straggled out into the sunshine. She was wearing a neat short-skirted crimson-and-brown check dress and a large blue apron and her haggard face was lit with radiantly kind strong dark eyes. Miriam envied her. She would like to pour out beer for those simple men and dispense their food ... quietly and busily.... No need to speak to them, or be clever. They would like her care and would understand. "Meine Damen" hurt her. She was not Dame--Was Fräulein? Elsa? Millie was. Millie would condescend to these men without feeling uncomfortable. She could see Millie at village teas.... The girls looked very small as they stood in groups about the roadway.... Their clothes ... their funny confidence ... being so sure of themselves ... what was it ... what were they so sure of? There was nothing ... and she was afraid of them all, even of Minna and Emma sometimes. They trailed, Minna once more safely at her side, slowly on through the streets of the close-built peaked and gabled, carved and cobbled town. It came nearer to her than Barnes, nearer even than the old first house she had kissed the morning they came away--the flower-filled garden, the river, the woods. They turned aside and up a little mounting street and filed into a churchyard. Fräulein tried and opened the great carved doorway of the church ... incense.... They were going into a Roman Catholic church. How easy it was; just to walk in. Why had one never done it before? There was one at Roehampton. But it would be different in England. "Pas convenable," she heard Mademoiselle say just behind her, "non, je connais ces gens-là, je vous promets ... vraiment j'en ai peur...." Elsa responded with excited enquiries. They all trooped quietly in and the great doors closed behind them. "Vraiment j'ai peur," whispered Mademoiselle.