"Yes, you mean the one at lunch? Wasn't she killing? Why moire ribbon instead of a proper necktie?"
"And why a pearl brooch across her stiff collar?"
"I believe she's what they used to call a 'New woman,'" said the girl in breeches, with a low laugh. "Honey, she's a forerunner, that's what she is, a kind of pioneer that's I got left behind. I believe she's the beginning of things like me. Oh! hang it all, I've left my gloves in the garden; come on, we must look for them." And they went down the steps again.
Joan laid down the newspaper and stared after them. Of course they had not known that she was there. "A forerunner, a kind of pioneer that's got left behind." She shoved the hair back from her forehead. Yes, they were right, that was what she had been, a kind of pioneer, and now she had got left behind. She saw the truth of this all round her, in women of the type that she had once been, that in a way she still was. Active, aggressively intelligent women, not at all self-conscious in their tailor-made clothes, not ashamed of their cropped hair; women who did things well, important things; women who counted and who would go on counting; smart, neatly put together women, looking like well-bred young men. They might still be in the minority and yet they sprang up everywhere; one saw them now even at Seabourne during the summer season. They were particular about their clothes, in their own way; the boots they wore were thick but well cut, their collars immaculate, their ties carefully chosen. But she, Joan Ogden, was the forerunner who had failed, the pioneer who had got left behind, the prophet who had feared his own prophecies. These others had gone forward, some of them released by the war, others who had always been free-lances, and if the world was not quite ready for them yet, if they had to meet criticism and ridicule and opposition, if they were not all as happy as they might be, still they were at least brave, whereas she had been a coward, conquered by circumstances. A funny old thing with grey hair, who wore moire ribbon instead of a necktie and a brooch in the wrong place; yes, that was what she had come to in twenty years.
She sprang up and hurried out of the hotel. On her way to the town she unfastened the pearl brooch and hurled it into the bushes. It was twenty minutes to six. She arrived at the shop she wanted just as they were putting up the shutters.
"I'm not too late, am I?" she inquired breathlessly.
The clerk behind the counter reassured her. "You've just ten minutes, madam."
"Then show me some stiff collars, the newest pattern." She chose half a dozen hastily. "And now some neckties, please."
She made the best selection she could from the limited stock at her disposal, and left the shop with her parcel under her arm. Half way up the drive to the hotel, she stood still and stared incredulously at her purchases; she had spent considerably over thirty shillings—she must have gone mad! She walked on slowly with bent head. A pioneer that had got left behind; what an impulsive fool she was! Pioneers that got left behind didn't count; they were lost, utterly lost in the desert. How could the young turn back for the old? In any case they didn't do it, and one could not catch up with the young when one was forty-three.