her parasol. Then she
turned to fly.

The short man stopped her and demanded her address, informing her that
she was to attend at Marlborough Street next day at eleven thirty.

'Case mayn't be called before twelve,' he added. 'Sorry to trouble you,
Miss. You won't hear any more about it unless it's a case for the
Sessions.'

Victoria ran down the steps, through the alley and into Charing Cross
Road as if something was tracking her, tracking her down. So this was
the end of the dream. She had stretched her hand out to the roses, and
the gods, less merciful to her than to Tantalus, had filled her palm
with thorns. It was horrible, horrible. She had imagination, and a
memory of old prints after Rowlandson which her father had treasured
came back to her with almost nauseating force. She pictured the French
_cafe chantant_ like the Cave of Harmony; rough boards on trestles,
laden with tankards of foaming beer, muddy lights, a foulness of tobacco
smoke, a raised stage with an enormous woman singing on it, her eye
frightfully dilated by belladonna, her massive arms and legs gleaming
behind the dirty footlights and everywhere around men smoking, with
noses like snouts, bodies like swines, hairy hands--hands, ye gods!

She walked quickly away from the place of revelation. She hurried
through the five o'clock inferno of Trafalgar Square, careless of the
traffic, escaping death ten times. She hurried down the spaces of
Whitehall, and only slackened her pace at Westminster Bridge. There she
stopped for a moment; the sun was setting and gilded and empurpled the
foreshores. The horror of the past half hour seemed to fade away as she
watched the roses and mauves bloom and blend, the deep shadows of the
embankments rise and fall. Near by, a vagrant, every inch of him clothed
in rags, the dirt of his face mimicking their colour, smoked a short
clay pipe, puffing at long intervals small wreaths of smoke into the
blue air. And as Victoria watched them form, rise and vanish into
nothingness, the sun kiss gently but pitilessly the old vagrant hunched
up against the parapet, the horror seemed to melt away. The peace of the
evening was expelling it, but another dread visitor was heralded in.
Victoria felt like lead in her heart, the return of uncertainty. Once
more she was an outcast. No work. Once more she must ask herself what to
do and find no answer.

The river glittered and rose and fell, as if inviting her. Victoria
shuddered. It