When May came life lay round Miriam without a flaw. She seemed to have reached the summit of a hill up which she had been climbing ever since she came to Newlands. The weeks had been green lanes of experience, fresh and scented¹ and balmy and free from lurking² fears. Now the landscape lay open before her eyes, clear from horizon to horizon, sunlit and flawless, past and future. The present, within her hands, brought her, whenever she paused to consider it, to the tips of her toes, as if its pressure lifted her. She would push it off, smiling—turning and shutting herself away from it, with laughter and closed eyes, she found herself deeper in the airy flood and drawing breath swam forward.

 

The old troubles, the things she had known from the beginning, the general shadow that lay over the family life and closed punctually in
whenever the sun began to shine, her own personal thoughts, the impossibility of living with people, poverty, disease, death in a dark corner, had moved and changed, melted and flowed away.

The family shadow had shrunk long ago, back in the winter months they had spent in Bennett’s little bachelor villa³, to a small black cloud of disgrace hanging over her father. At the time of its appearance, when the extent of his embarrassment⁴ was exactly known, she had sunk for a while under the conviction that the rest of her life must be spent in a vain attempt to pay off his debts. Her mind revolved⁵ round the problem hopelessly.... Even if she went on the stage she could not make enough to pay off one of his creditors⁶. Most women who went on the stage, Gerald had said, made practically nothing, and the successful ones had to spend enormous sums in bribery⁷ whilst they were making their way—even the orchestra expected to be flattered and bribed⁸. She would have to go on being a resident governess, keeping ten pounds a year for dress and paying over the rest of her salary. Her bitter rebellion against this

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