over her. She hated him. She hated him for such loutish cruelty. He
didn't care. And because he did not care, although she tried to feel
indifferent, she loved him the more. Blindly she walked away from the
house, and heard the trams grinding, and the rattle of carts over the
rough paving. Holloway Road at this point is at its worst--dull and
ugly, with an air of third-rate respectable indigence. She crossed the
road, and passed into a squalid thoroughfare called Grove Road, and
marched past the ugly houses with her head in the air, pretending that
she had no interest whatever in Toby. All her thoughts were busy
inventing indifference; and her consciousness was at each turn confusing
and contradicting her thoughts. If solitude had been possible to her,
Sally would have cried; but as a rule she cried very little, both
because she was rarely alone and because she was not naturally
hysterical. Fighting, therefore, against what she felt to be weakness,
she proceeded on her way, trying to laugh at rival butchers shouting
insults and challenges across the street. At the post office near her
old home she changed her open postal-order, and was given a
half-sovereign and ten shillings-worth of silver. This money she
carefully put, in paper, inside her blouse. She was then ready for her
interview.

At the old address new tenants already occupied the first floor flat,
and Mr. Clancy stood at the gate smoking his pipe. The man who lived in
the ground floor flat next door still showed his glass-covered sign "Why
Pay Rent?" Children littered the few inches of asphalt which served as
front garden to the two houses. Seeing Sally, Mr. Clancy took his pipe
out of his mouth, spat, and nodded at her in a friendly way.

"Hello, Sally. Keepin' well? Look fine."

"I've come to see Mrs. Perce-- Mrs. Barrow, you know."

Mr. Clancy jerked his head, receptive of the news, and as Sally passed
him continued to smoke and to regard the traffic. He must have been
bitterly cold, she thought; but she knew he must be standing outside
either because Mrs. Clancy was out or because she was in. The stairs
were just as steep as of old, and as dark. Sally had absolutely no
memory of her father's fall. She was merely curious about the new people
in the flat. But she did not see them, for all the doors were closed,
and she kicked her feet against the stairs, stumbling a little in the
darkness.

At her further progress a door flew open above, and Mrs. Perce