The next morning Lilian left her lodging¹ at the customary hour of 8.15, to join one of the hundreds of hastening, struggling, preoccupied² processions of workers that converged³ upon central London. She had slept for ten hours without a break on the previous day, risen hungry to a confused and far too farinaceous tea, done some dressmaking by the warmth of an oil-stove, and gone to bed again for another enormous period of heavy slumber⁴. She was well refreshed; her complexion⁵ was restored to its marvellous perfectness; and life seemed simpler, more promising⁶, and more agreeably exciting than usual.

 

She had convinced herself that the Irish lord would call at the office in person to pay his bill; the mysterious and yet thoroughly⁷ understood code that governs certain human relations would forbid him either to post a cheque or to send his man with the money. Her only fear was that he might already have called. But even if he had already called, he would call and call again, on one good pretext⁸ or another, until ... Anyhow they would meet.... And so on, according to the inconsequent logic⁹ of day-dreams in the everlasting¹⁰ night of the Tube.

 

The dreamer had a seat in the train--one of the advantages of living near the terminus--but strap-hangers of both sexes swayed in clusters over her, and along the whole length of the car, and both the platforms were too densely

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