wolf slunk round the house, coming every day
nearer to her door. She had beaten him off and there still was joy in
the thought of that victory. Her frame of mind was quiescent, tempered
still with a feeling of relief. This she shared with her companions, for
every one of them had known such straits as hers and worse. They had
come back to the P. R. R. filled with exceeding joy; craving bread they
had been given buns.

The Moorgate P. R. R. was a big depot. It boasted, in addition to the
ground floor, two smoking rooms, one on the first floor and one
underground, as well as a ladies' dining-room on the second floor. It
had a staff of twenty waitresses, six of whom were stationed in the
underground smoking-room; Victoria was one of these. A virile manageress
dominated them and drove with splendid efficiency a concealed kitchen
team of four who sweated in the midst of steam in an underground
stokehole.

Victoria's companions were all old P. R's except Betty. They all had
anything between two and five years' service behind them. Nelly, a big
raw boned country girl, was still assertive and loud; she had good looks
of the kind that last up to thirty, made up of fine coarse healthy
flesh lines, tending to redden at the nostrils and at the ears; her
hands were shapely still, though reddened and thickened by swabbing
floors and tables. Maud was a poor little thing, small boned with a
flaccid covering of white flesh, inclined to quiver a little when she
felt unhappy; her eyes were undecidedly green, her hair carroty in the
extreme. She had a trick of drawing down the corners of her mouth which
made her look pathetic. Amy and Jenny were both short and darkish,
inclined to be thin, always a little tired, always willing, always in a
state neither happy nor unhappy. Both had nearly five years' experience
and could look forward to another fifteen or so. They had no
assertiveness, so could not aspire to a managerial position, such as
might eventually fall to the share of Nelly.

Betty was an exception. She had not acquired the P. R. R. manner and
probably never would. The daughter of a small draper at Horley, she had
lived through a happy childhood, played in the fields, been to a little
private school. Her father had strained every nerve to face on the one
hand the competition of the London stores extending octopus-like into
the far suburbs, on the other that of the pedlars. Caught between the
aristocracy and the democracy of comm