ther set expression in
her eyes, and the slight, half-conscious movement of her lips, which,
together with her height and the distinction of her dress, made her look
as if the scurrying crowd impeded her, and her direction were different
from theirs. He noticed this calmly; but suddenly, as he passed her, his
hands and knees began to tremble, and his heart beat painfully. She did
not see him, and went on repeating to herself some lines which had stuck
to her memory: "It's life that matters, nothing but life--the process
of discovering--the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery
itself at all." Thus occupied, she did not see Denham, and he had not
the courage to stop her. But immediately the whole scene in the Strand
wore that curious look of order and purpose which is imparted to the
most heterogeneous things when music sounds; and so pleasant was this
impression that he was very glad that he had not stopped her, after
all. It grew slowly fainter, but lasted until he stood outside the
barrister's chambers.

When his interview with the barrister was over, it was too late to go
back to the office. His sight of Katharine had put him queerly out of
tune for a domestic evening. Where should he go? To walk through the
streets of London until he came to Katharine's house, to look up at the
windows and fancy her within, seemed to him possible for a moment;
and then he rejected the plan almost with a blush as, with a curious
division of consciousness, one plucks a flower sentimentally and throws
it away, with a blush, when it is actually picked. No, he would go and
see Mary Datchet. By this time she would be back from her work.

To see Ralph appear unexpectedly in her room threw Mary for a second off
her balance. She had been cleaning knives in her little scullery,
and when she had let him in she went back again, and turned on the
cold-water tap to its fullest volume, and then turned it off again.
"Now," she thought to herself, as she screwed it tight, "I'm not going
to let these silly ideas come into my head.... Don't you think Mr.
Asquith deserves to be hanged?" she called back into the sitting-room,
and when she joined him, drying her hands, she began to tell him about
the latest evasion on the part of the Government with respect to the
Women's Suffrage Bill. Ralph did not want to talk about politics, but
he could not help respecting Mary for taking such an interest in public
questions. He looked at her as she