Chill windy afternoon, grey tamarisks waving in a bleak wind, tea indoors and a fire bringing into the summery daylight the sudden message that summer was at an end. The changed scene chiming together with the plain outspoken anger. Again the enlivening power of anger, the relief of the clean cut, of everything brought to an end, of being once more single and clear, free of everyone, homesick for London.... Mr. Hancock's showing-out bell sounded in the hall. The long sitting had turned into a short one. No need to go up yet. He'll come downstairs, pad-pad, flexible hand-made shoes on the thick stair carpet, the sharp turn at the stair-end, the quick little walk along the passage and soft neat clatter of leather heels down the stone stairs to the workshop. Always the same. The same occasion. Which occasion? That used to be so clear and so tremendous. Confused now, but living on in every sound of his footsteps. Homesick for London. For those people whose lives are set in a pattern with mine, leaving its inner edge free to range. Perhaps the set pattern is enough. The daily association. The mass of work. Its results unseen. At the end it might show as a complete whole, crowded with life. Life comes in; strikes through. Everything comes in if you are set in a pattern and always in one place. Changed circumstances bring quickly, but imperfectly, without a background, the things that would be discovered slowly and perfectly, on a background, in calm daily air. All lives are the same life. Only one discovery, coming to everybody. The little bell on the wall burred gently. Room free. No hurry. I'll wait till he's gone downstairs. "Nice Miriam. You really are a dear, you know. You've a ruddy, blazing temper. You can sulk too, abominably. Then one discovers an unsuspected streak of sweetness. You forget. You have a rare talent for forgetfulness and recovery. You're suddenly pillowy. You've no _idea_, Miriam, what a blessing that is to the creature called man. It's womanly you are. Now don't resent that. It's a fine thing to be. It makes one want you, quite desperately. The essential deeps of you. Like an absolution. I'm admitting your deeps, Miriam." "It's most inconvenient suddenly to be forgetting you are having a row with a person. It's really a weakness. Suddenly getting interested." "Your real weakness is your lack of direction, the instability of your controls. If I had you on my hands for six months you'd be no end of a fine chap. Now don't resent that. It's a little crude, I admit. Perhaps I ought to beg your pardon. I beg your pardon, Miriam." "I never think about myself. I remember once being told that I was too excitable. It made me stare, for a few minutes. And now you. I believe it. But I shall forget again. And you are all wrong about 'controls.' I don't mean mine. I mean your silly idea of women having feebler controls than men." "Not my idea. Tested fact."