many. They were sharing it with her. It must he changing
them. They must be different for having come. They would all go back she
supposed. But they would not be the same as those who had never come.
She was sure they felt something of this. They were sitting about in
easy attitudes. How English they all looked... for a moment she wanted
to go and sit with them--just sit with them, rejoice in being abroad;
in having got away. She imagined all their people looking in and seeing
them so thoroughly at home in this little German restaurant free from
home influences, in a little world of their own. She felt a pang of
response as she heard their confidently raised voices. She could see
they were all, even Judy, a little excited. They chaffed each other.

Gertrude had taken everyone's choice between coffee and chocolate and
given an order.

Orders for schocolade were heard from all over the room. There were
only women there--wonderful German women in twos and threes--ladies out
shopping, Miriam supposed. She managed intermittently to watch three
or four of them and wondered what kind of conversation made them so
emphatic--whether it was because they held themselves so well and "spoke
out" that everything they said seemed so important. She had never seen
women with so much decision in their bearing. She found herself drawing
herself up.

She heard German laughter about the room. The sounds excited her and
she watched eagerly for laughing faces.... They were different.... The
laughter sounded differently and the laughing faces were different. The
eyes were expressionless as they laughed--or evil... they had that same
knowing way of laughing as though everything were settled--but they
did not pretend to be refined as Englishwomen did... they had the same
horridness... but they were... jolly.... They could shout if they liked.

Three cups of thick-looking chocolate, each supporting a little hillock
of solid cream arrived at her table. Clara ordered cakes.

At the first sip, taken with lips that slid helplessly on the
surprisingly thick rim of her cup Miriam renounced all the beverages she
had ever known as unworthy.

She chose a familiar-looking eclair--Clara and Emma ate cakes that
seemed to be alternate slices of cream and very spongy coffee-coloured
cake and then followed Emma's lead with an open tartlet on which plump
green gooseberries stood in a thick brown syrup.

12

During dinner Fraulein Pfaff went the rou