but they had already had them for
breakfast, and beefsteak was very good, but he hated it. Perhaps chops
would do, or, better still, mushrooms on toast, only they were not in
the market at that time of year. She dismissed a stewed squab, and
questioned a sweetbread, and wondered if there were not some kind of
game. In the end she decided to leave it to the provision man, and she
lost no time after she reached her decision in going out to consult him.
He was a bland, soothing German, and it was a pleasure to talk with him,
because he brought her married name into every sentence, and said, "No,
Mrs. Maxwell;" "Yes, Mrs. Maxwell;" "I send it right in, Mrs. Maxwell."
She went over his whole list of provisions with him, and let him
persuade her that a small fillet was the best she could offer a person
whose frame needed nourishing, while at the same time his appetite
needed coaxing. She allowed him to add a can of mushrooms, as the right
thing to go with it, and some salad; and then while he put the order up
she stood reproaching herself for it, since it formed no fit lunch, and
was both expensive and commonplace.

She was roused from her daze, when she was going to countermand the
whole stupid order by the man's saying: "What can I do for you this
morning, Mrs. Harley?" and she turned round to find at her elbow the
smouldering-eyed woman of the bathing-beach. She lifted her heavy lids
and gave Louise a dull glance, which she let a sudden recognition burn
through for a moment and then quenched. But in that moment the two women
sealed a dislike that had been merely potential before. Their look said
for each that the other was by nature, tradition, and aspiration
whatever was most detestable in their sex.

Mrs. Harley, whoever she was, under a name that Louise electrically
decided to be fictitious, seemed unable to find her voice at first in
their mutual defiance, and she made a pretence of letting her strange
eyes rove about the shop before she answered. Her presence was so
repugnant to Louise that she turned abruptly and hurried out of the
place without returning the good-morning which the German sent after
her with the usual addition of her name. She resented it now, for if it
was not tantamount to an introduction to that creature, it was making
her known to her, and Louise wished to have no closer acquaintance with
her than their common humanity involved. It seemed too odious to have
been again made aware that they were