For at last she had admitted a dread.
In any case, her destiny was quite as likely to be determined by a visit to that public-house up the Thames as by writing, in this stuffy Holborn third floor, answers to ridiculous questions about pro forma invoices and bills of lading.
She was still turning these things over in her mind when the bell rang for the close of the first part of the examination.
She ate her lunch in the company of Kitty Windus and Miss Levey, and then the three women passed out on to the staircase and sat down half-way down the stairs. But the men had flocked to the staircase for their noxious smoking, and Louie re-entered the general-room again. Then she remembered the doubtful point in her paper and walked to the library. She passed through it into the old ledger-room. Any old ledger would settle the point on which she was not quite sure.
The room was almost dark, but Louie knew where the musty old books were. She put out her hand to the nearest of them. But suddenly she withdrew her hand. The high window that gave on the head of the stairs afforded no more than a glimmer of light, but Louie thought she had seen something move. She peered into the twilight, "Is anybody there?" she said, but she had no answer.
But the room was occupied. The next moment she had seen and fled.
Her irregular lips were pursed as she came out into the light again. There was a confusion, too, in her eyes, probably as much as there had been in the eyes of the two she had come upon in there. They must have seen her come in, and have realised that their only chance of escaping detection lay in keeping perfectly still.
Polly Ross, cheek to cheek with that horrid little bounder!
There was no question now of whom the girl preferred.
Louie, wondering what right she had to do so, felt nevertheless a little sick.