e morning turned half-puzzled,
half-disappointed upon the growing group of girls examining the watch.

CHAPTER IV

1

Miriam paid her first visit to a German church the next day, her third
Sunday. Of the first Sunday, now so far off, she could remember nothing
but sitting in a low-backed chair in the saal trying to read "Les
Travailleurs de la Mer"... seas... and a sunburnt youth striding down a
desolate lane in a storm... and the beginning of tea-time. They had been
kept indoors all day by the rain.

The second Sunday they had all gone in the evening to the English church
with Fraulein Pfaff... rush-seated chairs with a ledge for books, placed
very close together and scrooping on the stone floor with the movements
of the congregation... a little gathering of English people. They
seemed very dear for a moment... what was it about them that was so
attractive... that gave them their air of "refinement"?...

Then as she watched their faces as they sang she felt that she knew all
these women, the way, with little personal differences, they would talk,
the way they would smile and take things for granted.

And the men, standing there in their overcoats.... Why were they there?
What were they doing? What were their thoughts?

She pressed as against a barrier. Nothing came to her from these
unconscious forms.

They seemed so untroubled.... Probably they were all Conservatives....
That was part of their "refinement." They would all disapprove of Mr.
Gladstone.... Get up into the pulpit and say "Gladstone" very loud...
and watch the result. Gladstone was a Radical... "pull everything up
by the roots."... Pater was always angry and sneery about him....
Where were the Radicals? Somewhere very far away... tub-thumping... the
Conservatives made them thump tubs... no wonder.

She decided she must be a Radical. Certainly she did not belong to these
"refined" English--women or men. She was quite sure of that, seeing them
gathered together, English Church-people in this foreign town.

But then Radicals were probably chapel?

It would be best to stay with the Germans. Yes.... she would stay. There
was a woman sitting in the endmost chair just across the aisle in line
with them. She had a pale face and looked worn and middle-aged. The
effect of "refinement" made on Miriam by the congregation seemed to
radiate from her. There was a large ostrich feather fastened by a
gleaming buckle against the side of her silky be