She spoke out quite clearly, moving so that she was half turned towards Miriam, and completely exposed to her, as she sat with an elbow on the back of her chair and her knees comfortably crossed, in all her slender grey-clad length, still set towards the centre of the platform. Miriam unwillingly searched her curious effect of making in the atmosphere about her, a cold, delicate, blue and white glare. She had seemed, all the evening, a well-dressed presence. But her little oval hat, entirely covered with a much washed piece of cream coloured lace and set back from her forehead at the angle of an old-fashioned flat lace cap, had not been bought at a shop, and the light grey garment so delicate in tone and expression, open at the neck, where creamy lace continued the effect of the hat, was nothing but a cheap rain-cloak. Either she was poor, and triumphing over her poverty with a laborious depressing ingenuity, or she was one of those people who deliberately do everything cheaply. There was something faintly horrible, Miriam felt, about the narrowness of her escape from dowdiness to distinction.... Washable lace was the simplest possible solution of the London hat problem. No untravelled Englishwoman would have thought of it...... Behind the serenity of her smooth white brow, behind her cold wide clearly ringed sea-blue eyes, was the dominant intelligence of it all, the secret of the strange atmosphere, that enveloped her whole effect; so strong and secure that it infected her words and movements with a faint robust delicate levity. In most women the sum of the tangible items would have produced the eye-wearying, eye-estranging pathos of the spectacle of patience fighting a lost battle, supplied so numerously all over London by women who were no longer young; or at least a consciously resigned cheerfulness. But she sat there with the enviable cool clear radiant eyes of a child that is held still and unsmiling by the deep entrancement of its mirth.
The chairman had risen and suddenly quelled the vast voice in the midst of its rising tide of tone, with the reminder that there would be opportunity for discussion a little later. A question rang out, short and sharp, exploding, as if released automatically by the renewal of stillness, so abruptly that Miriam missed its significance. The woman laughed instantly, a little clear tinkling gleeful sound, hesitatingly supported here and there amongst the forward rows of chairs by stirrings and small sounds of amusement. Miriam glowed with shame. It had been a common voice; perhaps some lonely uninstructed man, struggling with problems that were as terrible to him as to anyone; in the end desperately getting round them, by logical somersaults, so funny, that these habitually cultured minds could see only the absurdity. Her heart beat with gratitude as the lecturer, with gentle respectful gravity, paraphrased at some length an extract from the earlier part of his address. She was once more recalled by the voice at her side. Turning she found the unchanged face still set towards the platform. She answered the question in a low toneless voice that yet sounded more disturbing than the easy smooth conversational tone of her neighbour. She talked on, questioning and commenting, in neat inclusive phrases, and Miriam, turned towards her, reading the history of the duel of audience and lecturer in the flickerings across her face, of amusement or of scorn, responded freely, delighting in a converse that was more wonderful, with its background of cosmic discussion, than even the untrammelled exchange of confidences with a stranger on a bus. Presently there was a complete stillness.
“If there are no more questions” said the chairman, rising.
“I should just like” broke in a ringing cheerful voice quite near at hand, “to ask Dr. McHibbert why if he considers that metaphysic is of no use in a man’s life, he finds it worth while, to pursue such a fruitless study?”
“Don’t answer” said the woman in clear penetrating tones.
“Don’t answer; don’t answer,” repeated in the immediate neighbourhood two or three masculine voices. The lecturer, sitting bent forward, his friendly open brow yielded up to the invading audience, his big hands clasped capaciously between his knees, sent a blue glance swiftly in her direction, hesitated a moment, and then sat silent, smiling broadly down at his clasped hands.
“Isn’t he a perfect darling,” murmured Miriam while the chairman declared the lecture open for discussion and she gathered herself together for close attention.
“There will be nothing worth heahghing till he sums up” said her companion and went on to ask her if she meant to attend the next lecture. Miriam perceived that unless she chose to escape forcibly, her companion had her in a close net of conversation. She glanced and saw that her face was already that of a familiar associate, no longer spurring her to trace to its source the strange impression that at first it had given her of being a forgotten face, whose sudden return, unrecognisably disguised, and yet so recognisable, filled her with a remembered sentiment of dislike.
“Rather” she said and then, watching the opening prospect of the long series of speeches, and protected by the monotonous booming of a pessimistic male voice “I’m so awfully relieved to find that science is only half true. But I can’t see why he says that metaphysic is no practical use. It would make all the difference every moment, to know for certain that mind is more real than matter.”
“Pahghfaitement.”