At tea-time she found herself happily exhausted, sitting alone in the den waiting for the sound of footsteps. For the first time the gas-stove was unlit. The rows of asbestos balls stood white and bare. But a flood of sunlight came through the western panes of the newly washed skylight. The little low tea-table with its fresh uncrumpled low hanging white cover and compact cluster of delicate china stood in full sunshine amidst the comfortable winter shabbiness. The decorative confusion on the walls shone richly out in the new bright light. It needed only to have all the skylights open the blue of the sky visible, the thin spring air coming in, the fire alight making a summery glow, to be perfect; like spring tea-time in a newly visited house. The Wilsons' sitting-room would be in an open blaze of shallow spring sunshine. She saw it going on day by day towards the rich light of summer ... jealously. One ought to be there every day. So much life would have passed through the room. Every day last week had been full of it, everything changed by it, and now, since yesterday it seemed months ago. It seemed too late to begin going down again. One thing blots out another. You cannot have more than one thing intensely. Quite soon it would be as if she had never been down; except in moments now and again, when something recalled the challenge of their point of view. They would not want her to go down again unless she had begun to be different. Until yesterday she might have begun. But yesterday afternoon they had been forgotten so completely, and waking up from yesterday she no longer wanted to begin their way of being different. But other people had already begun to identify her with them. That came of talking. If she had said nothing, nothing would have been changed; either at Wimpole Street or with the girls. Did they really like reading "The Evolution of the Idea of God" or were they only pretending? Sewing all the time, busily, like wives, instead of smoking and listening and thinking. * * * * * Which was the stronger? The interest of getting the whole picture there, and struggling with Mr. Wilson's deductions or the interest of getting the girls to grasp and admire his conclusions even while she herself refused them.... "Why can't I keep quiet about the things that happen? It's all me, my conceit and my way of rushing into things." ... But other people were the same in a way. Only there was something real in their way. They believed in the things they rushed into. "Miss Henderson knows the great critic, intimately." He had thought that would impress Miss Szigmondy. It did. For a moment she had stopped talking and looked surprised. There was time to disclaim, to tell them they were being impressed in the wrong way; to tell them something, to explain in some way. The moment had passed, full of terrible far-off trouble, "decisive." * * * * *