sageway
behind her. Granville in the autumnal dark, with the gas turned full on
inside it, looked all light, all quiet flame, as if the walls that were
the substance of it had been cut clean away, leaving a mere shell, a
mere framework for its golden incandescence.

So small, so fragile, so insubstantial was the shell, that Winny's
slight figure in the doorway showed in proportion solid and solitary and
immense, as if it sustained the perishable fabric.

She was leaning forward now, bearing up the shell on her shoulders. She
was looking out, up and down the Avenue.

"That you, Winny?" he said.

"Yes. I'm looking for Vi."

"She gone out?"

"Gone into Wandsworth."

"What did she go for?"

"To have a dress tried on."

"I say, she _is_ going it!"

"There's a girl in St. Ann's," said Winny, "what makes for her very
cheap."

He sighed and checked his sigh. "You bin slavin', Win?"

"No. Why?"

"You looked fagged out."

Winny's face was white under the gaslight.

She said nothing. She stood there looking out while he propped his
bicycle up against the window sill.

He followed as she turned slowly and went through the passage to the
back room.

"Kids asleep?"

"Yes. Fast."

She went to the dresser, and he helped her to take down the cups and
plates and set the table for their supper. In all her movements there
was a curious slowness and constraint, as if she were spinning time
out, thread by thread. It was five-and-twenty past eight.

"Who's that for?" she asked as he laid a third place at the side.

"Well, I should think it was for you."

She started ever so slightly, and stared at the three plates, as if
their number put her out in some intricate calculation.

"I must be going," she said.

"Not you. Not much!"

She submitted, moving uneasily about the place, but busy, folding things
and putting them away. He ran upstairs to wash. She could hear him
overhead, splashing, rubbing, and brushing.

When he came down again she was sitting on the sofa with her hands
clasped in front of her, her head bent, her eyes fixed, gazing at the
floor.

"I suppose we've got to wait for Vi," he said.

"Oh yes."

They waited.

"I say, it's a quarter to nine, you know," he said, presently.

"Hungry, Ran?"

"My word! I should think I was just. D'you think she's gone to Mother
and had supper there?"

"She--might have."

"Well, then, let's begin. Come along."

She shook her head. There was a slight