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lked away; it was about time to go to Moorgate Street. As he entered the smoking-room, Victoria blushed. The man moved her, stimulated her. When she saw him she felt like a body meeting a soul. He sat down at his usual place. Victoria brought him his tea, and laid it before him without a word. Nelly, lolling in another corner, kicked the ground, looking away insolently from the elaborate wink of one of the scullions. 'Here, read these,' said Farwell, pushing two of the books across the table. Victoria picked them up. '_Looking Backwards?_' she said. 'Oh, I don't want to do that. It's forward I want to go.' 'A laudable sentiment,' sneered Farwell, 'the theory of every Sunday School in the country, and the practice of none. However, you'll find it fairly soul-filling as an unintelligent anticipation. Personally I prefer the other. _Demos_ is good stuff, for Gissing went through the fire.' Victoria quickly walked away. Farwell looked surprised for a second, then saw the manageress on the stairs. 'Faugh,' he muttered, 'if the world's a stage I'm playing the part of a low intriguer.' He sipped his tea meditatively. In a few minutes Victoria returned. 'Thank you,' she whispered. 'It's good of you. You're teaching me to live.' Farwell looked at her critically. 'I don't see much good in that,' he said, 'unless you've got something to live for. One of our philosophers says you live either for experience or the race. I recommend the former to myself, and to you nothing.' 'Why shouldn't I live for anything?' she asked. 'Because life's too dear. And its pleasures are not white but piebald.' 'I understand,' said Victoria, 'but I must live.' '_Je n'en vois pas la necessite_,' quoted Farwell smiling. 'Never mind what that means,' he added, 'I'm only a pessimist.' The next few weeks seemed to create in Victoria a new personality. Her reading was so carefully selected that every line told. Farwell knew the hundred best books for a working girl; he had a large library composed mostly of battered copies squeezed out of his daily bread. Victoria's was the appetite of a gorgon. In another month she had absorbed _Odd Women_, _An Enemy of the People_, _The_ _Doll's House_, _Alton Locke_, and a translation of _Germinal_. Every night she read with an intensity which made her forget that March chilled her to the bone; poring over the book, her eyes a few inches from the candle, she soaked in rebellion. When the
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