at hand. Whatever happened she would hold to that.



6


She glanced up at her small leather handbag lying in the rack and
thought of the solid money in her purse. Twenty-five shillings. It was
a large sum and she was to have more as she needed.

She glanced across at the pale face with its point of reddish beard, the
long white hands laid one upon the other on the crossed knees. He had
given her twenty-five shillings and there was her fare and his, and his
return fare and her new trunk and all the things she had needed. It
must be the end of taking money from him. She was grown up. She was
the strong-minded one. She must manage. With a false position ahead
and after a short space, disaster, she must get along.

The peaceful Dutch fields came to her mind. They looked so secure.
They had passed by too soon. We have always been in a false position,
she pondered. Always lying and pretending and keeping up a show--never
daring to tell anybody. . . . Did she want to tell anybody? To come out
into the open and be helped and have things arranged for her and do
things like other people? No. . . . No. . . . "Miriam always likes to
be different"--"Society is no boon to those not sociable." Dreadful
things . . . and the girls laughing together about them. What did they
really mean?

"Society is no boon to those not sociable"--on her birthday-page in