tended her half-bared arm and picked up the
landlord's notice and gave it to him to read. Watching him read it
she inwardly trembled, as though she had started on some perilous
enterprise the end of which might be black desperation, as though she
had cast off from the shore and was afloat amid the waves of a vast,
swollen river--waves that often hid the distant further bank. She felt
somehow that she was playing for all or nothing. And though she had
had immense experience of men, though it was her special business
to handle men, she felt herself to be unskilled and incompetent. The
common ruses, feints, devices, guiles, chicaneries were familiar to
her; she could employ them as well as any and better than most; they
succeeded marvellously and absurdly--in the common embarrassments and
emergencies, because they had not to stand the test of time. Their
purpose was temporary, and when the purpose had been accomplished
it did not matter whether they were unmasked or not, for the
adversary-victim--who, in any event, was better treated than he
deserved!--either had gone for ever, or would soon forget, or was too
proud to murmur, or philosophically accepted a certain amount of
wile as part of the price of ecstasy. But this embarrassment and this
emergency were not common. They were a supreme crisis.

"The other lady has had notice too," she said, and went on: "It's the
same everywhere in this quarter. I know not if it is the same in other
districts, but quite probably it is.... It is the end."

She saw by the lifting of his eyebrows that he was impressed, that
he secretly admitted the justifiability of her summons to him. And
instantly she took a reasonable, wise, calm tone.

"It is a little serious, is it not? I do not frighten myself, but it
is serious. Above all, I do not wish to trouble thee. I know all thy
anxieties, and I am a woman who understands. But except thee I have
not a friend, as I have often told thee. In my heart there is a place
only for one. I have a horror of all those women. They weary me. I am
not like them, as thou well knowest. Thus my existence is solitary. I
have no relations. Not one. See! Go into no matter what interior,
and there are photographs. But here--not one. Yes, one. My own. I am
forced to regard my own portrait. What would I not give to be able
to put on my chimney-piece thy portrait! But I cannot. Do not
deceive thyself. I am not complaining. I comprehend perfectly. It
is impossible t