yday humanity. More than this she could not understand.

She picked her food, well knowing that, if she left it untouched, Mrs
Farthing would associate her loss of appetite with the fact of her
being seen in the company of a man, and would lead the landlady to make
ridiculously sentimental deductions, which would be embarrassing to
Mavis.

When she went upstairs, she did not undress. She felt that it would be
useless to seek sleep at present. Instead, she stood by the open window
of her room, and, after lighting a cigarette and blowing out the
candle, looked out into the night.

It was just another such an evening that she had looked into the sky
from the window of Mrs Ellis' on the first day of her stay on Kiva
Street. Then, beyond sighing for the peace of the country, she had
believed that she had only to secure a means of winning her daily bread
in order to be happy. Now, although she had obtained the two desires of
her heart, she was not even content. Perigal's words awoke in her
memory:

"No sooner was a desire satisfied, than one was at once eager for
something else."

It would almost seem as if he had spoken the truth--"almost," because
she was hard put to it to define what it was for which her being
starved.

Mavis looked out of the window. The moon had not yet emerged from a
bank of clouds in the east; as if in honour of her coming, the edge of
these sycophants was touched with silver light. The stars were growing
wan, as if sulkily retiring before the approach of an overwhelming
resplendence. Mavis's cigarette went out, but she did not bother to
relight it; she was wondering how she was to obtain the happiness for
which her heart ached: the problem was still complicated by the fact of
her being ignorant in which direction lay the promised land.

Her windows looked over the garden, beyond which fields of long grasses
stretched away as far as she could see. A profound peace possessed
these, which sharply contrasted with the disquiet in her mind.

Soon, hitherto invisible hedges and trees took dim, mysterious shape;
the edge of the moon peeped with glorious inquisitiveness over the
clouds. Calmly, royally the moon rose. So deliberately was she
unveiled, that it seemed as if she were revealing her beauty to the
world for the first time, like a proud, adored mistress unrobing before
an impatient lover, whose eyes ached for what he now beheld.

Mystery awoke in the night. Things before unseen or barely vi