lked away; it was about time to
go to Moorgate Street.

As he entered the smoking-room, Victoria blushed. The man moved her,
stimulated her. When she saw him she felt like a body meeting a soul. He
sat down at his usual place. Victoria brought him his tea, and laid it
before him without a word. Nelly, lolling in another corner, kicked the
ground, looking away insolently from the elaborate wink of one of the
scullions.

'Here, read these,' said Farwell, pushing two of the books across the
table. Victoria picked them up.

'_Looking Backwards?_' she said. 'Oh, I don't want to do that. It's
forward I want to go.'

'A laudable sentiment,' sneered Farwell, 'the theory of every Sunday
School in the country, and the practice of none. However, you'll find it
fairly soul-filling as an unintelligent anticipation. Personally I
prefer the other. _Demos_ is good stuff, for Gissing went through the
fire.'

Victoria quickly walked away. Farwell looked surprised for a second,
then saw the manageress on the stairs.

'Faugh,' he muttered, 'if the world's a stage I'm playing the part of a
low intriguer.'

He sipped his tea meditatively. In a few minutes Victoria returned.

'Thank you,' she whispered. 'It's good of you. You're teaching me to
live.'

Farwell looked at her critically.

'I don't see much good in that,' he said, 'unless you've got something
to live for. One of our philosophers says you live either for experience
or the race. I recommend the former to myself, and to you nothing.'

'Why shouldn't I live for anything?' she asked.

'Because life's too dear. And its pleasures are not white but piebald.'

'I understand,' said Victoria, 'but I must live.'

'_Je n'en vois pas la necessite_,' quoted Farwell smiling. 'Never mind
what that means,' he added, 'I'm only a pessimist.'

The next few weeks seemed to create in Victoria a new personality. Her
reading was so carefully selected that every line told. Farwell knew the
hundred best books for a working girl; he had a large library composed
mostly of battered copies squeezed out of his daily bread. Victoria's
was the appetite of a gorgon. In another month she had absorbed _Odd
Women_, _An Enemy of the People_, _The_ _Doll's House_, _Alton Locke_,
and a translation of _Germinal_. Every night she read with an intensity
which made her forget that March chilled her to the bone; poring over
the book, her eyes a few inches from the candle, she soaked in
rebellion. When the