Perhaps there in the dark corner they made a sort of whole. She rejoiced gratefully in the memory of Mag's factory girl, in her own idea of having the sleeves gauged at the wrists in defiance of fashion, to make frills extending so as partly to cover her large hands; over the suddenly realised possibility of wearing the silkette skirt as a day skirt. She must remain in the corner, not moving, all the afternoon. If she moved in the room the bright light would show the scrappiness of her clothes. In the evening it would be all right. She sat back in her corner, happy, and forgetful. She had not had so much tea as she wanted. She had refused the cigarette against her will. Now she was alive. These weak things would not happen again, and next time she would bring her own cigarettes. To take out a cigarette and light it here, at home amongst her own people. These were her people. There was something here in the exciting air that she did not understand; something that was going to tax her more than she had ever been taxed before. She had found her way to it through her wanderings; it had come; it was her due. It corresponded to something in herself, shapeless and inexpressible; but there. She knew it by herself, sitting in her corner; her own people would know it, if they could see her here; but no one here would find it out. Every one here was doing something; or the wife of somebody who did something. They were like a sort of secret society ... all agreed about something ... about what? _What_ was it Mr. Wilson was so sure about?... They would despise everybody who was living an ordinary life, or earning a living in anything but something to do with books. Seeing her there they would take for granted that she too, was somebody ... and she was somehow, within herself somewhere; although she had made herself into a dentist's secretary. She was better qualified to be here and to understand the strange secret here, in the end, than anyone else she knew. But it was a false position, unless they all knew what she was. If she could say clever things they would like her; but she would be like Alma and Mrs. Binkley; pretending; and without any man to point to as giving her the right to be about here. It was a false position. It was as if she were there as a candidate to become an Alma or a Mrs. Binkley; imitating the clever sayings of men, or flattering them.