Interim

Miriam thumped her Gladstone bag down on to the doorstep. Stout boots hurried along the tiled passage and the door opened on Florrie in her outdoor clothes smiling brilliantly f...

A day of blazing heat changed the season suddenly. Flat threatening sunlight travelled round the house. The shadowy sun-blinded flower-scented waiting-room held street-baked pat...

Miriam came forward seeing nothing but the golden gaslight pouring over the white table-cloth. She sat down near Mrs. Bailey within the edge of its radiance. The depths of the l...

Sitting down almost the moment Mr. Mendizabal brought him into the room and playing _Wagner_. With many wrong notes and stumbling phrases, but self-forgetfully, in the foreign w...

She looked at her watch again. It was too late now even to go round to Kennett Street. She had spent New Year's Eve alone in a cold bedroom. Why could one not be sure whether it...

"Ah. I thought the young lady was in. I _thought_ so." Mrs. Bailey stood approving inside the door. The sunlight streamed on to her shabby skirt. The large dusty house, the many...

Miriam let herself cautiously in. The whole house was hers; she was a _boarder_; but the right to linger freely in any part of it was bought by Sissie's French lessons and being...

Still talking, Mr. Bowdoin went up the rubbish-strewn steps and opened the dusty blistered door with his latchkey. Miriam followed him into a dark bare passage and down carpetle...

Eleanor's cab rumbled away round the corner. Mrs. Bailey was still standing at the top of the steps. Miriam ran up the steps looking busily ahead. It's going to be a lovely even...

Miriam found her old prayer-book and scribbled her name on the flyleaf.... Bella de Castro writing _from mother_ under her name in her bible ... _feeling_ something, privately,...

Miriam got up early the next morning and went to her window in her night-gown. There was a thick August haze in the square. The air smelt moist. She leaned out into the chill of...