h a waiter to
get married. He was in a restaurant, Highgate way, where I was in
service. I found out all about it when I got there. O Lor! Why, we
jolly well _had_ to drink, what with those Argentines who're half
monkeys and the good of the house! Oh, Lor!' She smiled. 'Those were
high old times,' she said inconsequently, overwhelmed by the glamour of
the past. There was silence.

'I see,' said Victoria suddenly. 'I've never seen it before. If you want
to get on, you've got to run on business lines. No ties, no men to bleed
you. Save your money. Don't drink; save your looks. Why, those are good
rules for a bank cashier! If you trip, down you go in the mud and
nobody'll pick you up. So you've got to walk warily, not look at
anybody, play fair and play hard. Then you can get some cash together
and then you're free.'

There was silence. Victoria had faced the problem too squarely for two
of her guests. Lissa looked dreamily towards the garden, wondering where
Fritz was, whether she was wise in loving; Duckie, conscious of her
heavy legs and incipient dropsy, blushed, then paled. Alone, Zoe, stiff
and energetic like the determined business woman she was, wore on her
lips the enigmatic smile born of a nice little sum in French three per
cents.

'I must be going,' said Duckie hoarsely. She levered herself off the
sofa. Then, almost silently, the party broke up.

CHAPTER XIII

LIFE pursued its even tenour; and Victoria, watching it go by, was
reminded of the endless belt of a machine. The world machine went on
grinding, and every breath she took was grist thrown for ever into the
intolerable mill. It was October again, and already the trees in the
garden were shedding fitful rains of glowing leaves. Alone the elder
tree stood almost unchanged, a symbol of the everlasting. Now and then
Victoria walked round the little lawn with Snoo and Poo, who were too
shivery to chase the fat spiders. Often she stayed there for an hour,
one hand against a tree trunk, looking at nothing, bathed in the mauve
light of the dying year. Already the scents of decay, of wetness, filled
the little garden and struck cold when the sun went down.

Every day now Victoria felt her isolation more cruelly. Solitude was no
longer negative; it had materialised and had become a solid inimical
presence. When the sun shone and she could walk the milky way of the
streets, alone but feeling with every sense the joy of living time,
there was not muc