Miriam got up and swung the half-read letter above her head like a dumb-bell.
She looked about her like a stranger—everything was as it had been the day she came—the little cramped basement hall—the strange German girls—small and old looking, poking about amongst the baskets. She hardly knew them. She passed half-blindly amongst them with her eyes wide. The little dressing-room seemed full of bright light. She saw everyone at once clearly. All the English girls were there. She knew every line of each of them. They were her old friends. They knew her. Looking at none of them she felt she embraced them all, closely, and that they knew it. They shone. They were beautiful. She wanted to cry aloud. She was English and free. She had nothing to do with this German school. Baskets at her feet made her pick her way. Solomon was kneeling at one, sorting and handing out. At a little table under the window Millie stood jotting pencil notes in a pocket-book. Judy was at her side. The others were grouped about the piano. Gertrude sat on the keyboard her legs dangling.
Miriam plumped down on a full basket.
“Hullo, Hendy, old chap, you look all right!”
Miriam looked fearlessly up at the faces that were turned towards her. Again she seemed to see all of them at once. The circle of her vision seemed huge. It was as if the confining rim of her glasses were gone and she saw equally from eyes that seemed to fill her face. She drew all their eyes to her. They were waiting for her to speak. For a moment it seemed as if they stood there lifeless. She had drawn all their meaning and all their happiness into herself. She could do as she wished with them—their poor little lives.
They stood waiting for some word from her. She dropped her eyes and caught the flash of Gertrude’s swinging steel buckles.
“Wasn’t Fräulein angry?” she said carelessly.
Someone pushed the door to.
“Sly old bird.”
“Fancy imagining we shouldn’t see through Mademoiselle leaving.”