“There were fields,” she said under her breath. “There were flowers——”
“Here’s the Town Hall. Didn’t you want the Town Hall?”
Unsteadily she rose and got out. The tram clanged forward.
She stood on an island where four roads met and looked about her. The sun stared down at her, a brazen city sun. The asphalt was hot and soft under her feet. Road-menders were at work in the fair-way. They struck alternately at the chisel between them and it was as if the rain of blows fell upon her. She felt stupid and dizzy. She did not know where to turn. There was nothing left of her village, and yet the place was familiar. There were drab houses and rows of shops and a stream of traffic, and the figures of women and men—menacing, impersonal figures of men—that hurried towards her down the endless streets.
“Well?” said the Baxter girl.
“But that’s not the end?” I said.
The Baxter girl looked at me oddly.
“Why not?” And then—“How else could it end? How would you make it end?”
“Oh, I don’t mean——” I began. I hesitated. “I don’t think I quite understand,” I said.
That was the truth. At the time I couldn’t follow it. It moved me. It swept me along. But whether it was good or bad I didn’t know. I hadn’t the faintest idea of what it was driving at. I felt in a vague way that the people at home wouldn’t have liked it.