sh.

Caroline watched him go with a most illogical sense of being deserted;
then the turnstile clicked and she had to release the clutch, letting
through a pleasant-looking mother with a daughter of about seventeen,
both so happy in each other's company--making a lark of coming out
together to hear the band on such a wet night. Caroline's unreasonable
feeling of being alone and deserted deepened. For the first time in
years, she consciously wanted her own mother--longed for her with an
ache of the heart that almost brought tears. She seemed so alone.
Aunt Creddle was goodness itself, but had her own family to think of
first, of course, and could no longer take quite such a vivid interest
in a niece as when her own children were quite little. Uncle Creddle
had a steady kindness which nothing could change, but he too was a
struggling man with a family. Besides, he was rather hard in some ways
beneath his good-nature. She still remembered how he had spoken to her
that evening when he found her screaming and playing about those empty
houses with the boys.

No, she belonged nowhere: that was it. She did not think as the
Creddles did about lots of things, and yet she did not belong to the
world which girls like Miss Laura Temple lived in, either. She had got
past one sort, and had not found another. All these thoughts passed
confusedly through a mind that had been quickened by something
incomprehensible in her experiences at Laura Temple's that afternoon.
Through her thoughts she heard the hum of the sea, the tinkling fall of
heavy rain on asphalt, the faint rising and falling of violin music.

She felt a sudden spirit of rebellion. Why shouldn't she have some
fun? She would enjoy herself! She wasn't going to go on like this,
letting people in to the promenade, doing housework, practising
typewriting. Why did some girls get everything, like Laura Temple, and
others nothing? It was not fair. It was not fair----

Then she saw Wilson at the little window. "Good evening. Stormy
night!" he said, and passed through without any further remark.

She knew he had come straight from Laura's and was taking a short cut
across the parade to his own lodgings, which were beyond the exit
towards the north. He had come from no desire to see her. Still he
might have spoken a word: he need not have gone through like that, as
if it were only Lillie working the turnstile.

As she thought that, she felt a tear on her lips.