5
“It’s a pleasure to see you smoke,” murmured Mr. Corrie fervently, “you’re the first woman I’ve seen smoke con amore.”
Contemplating the little screwed-up appreciative smile on the features of her partner, bunched to the lighting of his own cigarette, Miriam discharged a double stream of smoke violently through her nostrils—breaking out at last a public defiance of the freemasonry of women. “I suppose I’m a new woman—I’ve said I am now, anyhow,” she reflected, wondering in the background of her determination how she would reconcile the rôle with her work as a children’s governess. “I’m not in their crowd, anyhow; I despise their silly secret,” she pursued, feeling out ahead towards some lonely solution of her difficulty that seemed to come shapelessly towards her, but surely—the happy weariness of conquest gave her a sense of some unknown strength in her.
For the rest of the evening the group in the sofa-corner presented her a frontage of fawning and flattery.