"_Alma._ I want a slice of life!" "Of course, my very dear! Take one, Miriam. Take a _large_ one. An oat. Not a vote. One woman, one oat...." "I want an oat _and_ a vote.... No. I don't want a vote. I want to have one and not use it. Taking sides simply annihilates me." "Don't be annihilated, old fing. Take an oat." "Give me one." "I will. I _do_!" Alma's revealed splendour ... lighting and warming the surrounding bleakness. In that moment her amazing gift that would move her so far from me seemed nothing. Herself, everything to me. Alma is a star. Her name should be Stella.... But I had already decided that it would not be him. And that marvellous beginning cannot come again. * * * * * "Particularly jolly schoolgirls! You'll like them. They're free. They mean to be free. Now they, Miriam, _are_ the new woman." Posing, exploiting, deliberately uncatlike cats. _How_ could he be taken in? _Why_ were all her poses revealed to me? What brought me on the scene just at those moments? Why that strange little series of events placing me, alone, of the whole large party, innocently there just at that moment, to see the origin of his idea of a jolly smile and how he answers it? "You looked like a Silenus." "That sort of thing always looks foolish from the outside. It was nothing. I beg of you, I entreat you to think no more of it." Again the little bell. Clean. A steady little summons. He had not gone downstairs. He was washing his hands; with an air of communicativeness. "I've a piece of news for you.... I have decided to leave Mr. Orly and set up, elsewhere, on my own account." "Really?" The beating of her heart shook the things she was holding in her hands. "Yes. It's a decision I've been approaching for some time. As you know, Mr. Leyton is about to be taken into partnership. I have come to the conclusion that it is best on the whole to move and develop my practice along my own lines." So calmly handing out desolation. Here was the counterpart of the glorious weeks. Her carelessly-made living was gone; or horribly reduced. The Orlys alone would not be able to give her a hundred a year. "When is it to be?" "Of course, whenever I go, I shall want help." "_Oh_ ..."