Vivie: "Just so. I think I shall write him a farewell note, saying it's only for a time: I mean, that I may return later on—dormant partnership—nothing really changed, don't you know? But that as Rose and Lilian are going, Mrs.—what does she call herself, Claridge?"—(Norie interpolates: "Yes, that was her idea: she doesn't want to blazon the name of Clarges as the symbol of Free Love, 'cos of the dear old Dean; yet Claridge will not be too much of a surrender and is sure to invoke respectability, because of the Hotel")—"Mrs. Claridge, then, is coming in my stead—He's to help her all he can—and my cousin, who is reading for the Bar, will also look in when you are very busy. I shall, of course, see about rooms in one of the Inns of Court—the Temple perhaps. I have been stealthily watching Fig Tree Court. I think I can get chambers there—a man is turning out next month—got a Colonial appointment—I've put my new name down at the lodge and I shall have to rack my brains for references—you will do for one—or perhaps not—however that I can work out later. Of course I won't take the final plunge till I have secured the rooms. Meantime I will use my bedroom here but promise you I will be awfully prudent..."
Norie: "I couldn't possibly have Beryl 'living in,' with a child hanging about the place; so I think if you do go I shall turn your bedroom into an apartment which Beryl and I can use for toilet purposes but where we can range out on book-shelves a whole lot of our books. Just now they are most inconveniently stored away in boxes. It's rather tiresome about Beryl. I believe she's going to have another child. At any rate she says it may be four months before she can come to work here regularly. I asked her about it the other day, because if mother gets worse I may be hindered about coming to the office, and I didn't want you to get overworked,—so I said to Beryl.... That reminds me, she referred to the coming child and added that its father was a policeman. Quite a nice creature in his private life. Of course she's only kidding. I expect it's the architect all the time. You know how she delighted in shocking us at Newnham. I wish she hadn't this kink about her. P'raps I'm getting old-fashioned already—You used to call me 'the Girondist.' But if the New Woman is to go on the loose and be unmoral like the rabbits, won't the cause suffer from middle-class opposition?"
Vivie: "Perhaps. But it may gain instead the sympathies of the lower and the upper classes. Why do you bother about Beryl? I agree with you in disliking all this sexuality..."
Norie: "Does one ever quite know why one likes people? There is something about Beryl that gets over me; and she is a worker. You know how she grappled with that Norfolk estate business?"
Vivie: "Well, it's fortunate she and I have not met since Newnham days. You must tip her the story that I am going away for a time—abroad—and that a young—young, because I look a mere boy, dressed up in men's clothes—a young cousin of mine, learned in the law, is going to drop in occasionally and do some of the work..."
Norie: "I'm afraid I'm rather weak-willed. I ought to stop this prank before it has gone too far, just as I ought to discourage Beryl's babies. Your schemes sound so stagey. Off the stage you never take people in with such flimsy stories and weak disguises—you'll tie yourself up into knots and finally get sent to prison.... However.... I can't help being rather tickled by your idea. It's vilely unjust, men closing two-thirds of the respectable careers to women, to bachelor women above all..." (A pause, and the two women look out on a blue London dotted with lemon-coloured, straw-coloured, mauve-tinted lights, with one cold white radiance hanging over the invisible Piccadilly Circus)—"Well, go ahead! Follow your star! I can be confident of one thing, you won't do anything mean or disgraceful. Deceiving Man while his vile laws and restrictions remain in force is no crime. Be prudent, so far as compromising our poor little firm here is concerned, because if you bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave we shall lose a valuable source of income. Besides: any public scandal just now in which I was mixed up might kill my mother. Want any money?"
Vivie: "You generous darling! Never, never shall I forget your kindness and your trust in me. You have at any rate saved one soul alive." (Honoria deprecates gratitude.) "No, I don't want money—yet. You made me take and bank £700 last January over that Rio de Palmas coup—heaps more than my share. Altogether I've got about £1,000 on deposit at the C. and C. bank, the Temple Bar branch. I've many gruesome faults, but I am thrifty. I think I can win through to the Bar on that. Of course, if afterwards briefs don't come in—"
Norie: "Well, there'll always be the partnership which will go on unaltered. I shall pretend you are only away for a time and your share shall be regularly paid in to your bank. Of course I shall meet Mr. Vavasour Williams now and again and I can tell him things and consult with him. If we think Beryl, after she is installed here as head clerk—of course I shan't make her a partner for years and years—not at all if she remains flighty—if we think she is unsuspicious, and Bertie Adams likewise, and the new clerks and the housekeeper and her husband, there is no reason why you should not come here fairly often and put in as much work as you can on our business."
Vivie: "Yes. Of course I must be careful of one predicament. I have studied the regulations about being admitted to the English Bar. They are very quaint and medieval or early Georgian. You mayn't be a Chartered Accountant or Actuary—the Lord alone knows why! I suppose some Lord Chancellor was done in the eye in Elizabeth's reign by an actuary and laid down that law. Equally you mayn't be a clergyman. As to that we needn't distress ourselves. It's rather piteous about the prohibiting Accountants, because as women we are not allowed to qualify in any capacity as Accountants or Actuaries; and work here is only permissible by our not pretending to belong to any recognized body like the Institute of Actuaries. So that in coming to work for you I must not seem to be in any way doing the business of Accountants or Actuaries. Indeed it might be awkward for my scheme if I was too openly associated with Fraser and Warren.
"I already think of myself as Williams—I shall pose of course as a Welshman. My appearance is rather Welsh, don't you think? It's the Irish blood that makes me look Keltic—I'm sure my father was an Irish student for the priesthood at Louvain, and certain scraps of information I got out of mother make me believe that her mother was a pretty Welsh girl from Cardiff, brought over to London Town by some ship's captain and stranded there, on Tower Hill.