Eve walked and walked. There seemed nothing for her to do in this feverish city, but to walk and to go on walking. A significant languor took possession of her. She was conscious of feeling very tired, not merely with physical tiredness, but with an utter weariness of spirit. Her mind refused to go on working. It refused to face any responsibility, to consider any enterprise.
It surprised her that she did not grow hungry. On the contrary, the sight of food in a window nauseated her. Her head ached more, and her lips felt dry. Flushes of heat went over her, alternating with tremors of cold. Her body felt limp. Her legs did not seem to be there, even though she went on walking aimlessly along the pavements. The faces of the people whom she passed began to appear grotesque and sinister. Nothing seemed very real. Even the sound of the traffic came from a long way off. By twelve o’clock she was just an underfed young woman with a temperature, a young woman who should have been in bed.
Eve never quite knew how the idea came to her. She just found it there quite suddenly, filling the whole lumen of her consciousness. She would go and speak to the rosy-faced suffragette who sold papers at the corner of Southampton Row. She did not realise that she had surrendered, or that Nature might be playing with her as a wise mother plays with a child.
Eve was quite innocently confident that the young woman would be there. The neatly dressed, compact figure seemed to enlarge itself, and to dominate the very city. Eve went up Shaftesbury Avenue, and along New Oxford Street. She was nearly run over at one crossing. A taxi driver had to jam on his brakes. She did not notice his angry, expostulatory glare.
“Now then, miss, wake up!”
It was the male voice, the voice of organised society. “Wake up; move along in the proper groove, or stand and be run over!” The words passed over and beyond her. It was a feverish dream walk to the corner of Southampton Row. Then she found herself talking to the young woman who sold papers.
“I meant to do something. I’m not strong enough. I have been out all night on the Embankment.”
She was conscious of a strong presence near her; of a pleasant practical voice speaking.
“Why, you’re ill! Have you had anything to eat?”
“Some coffee and bread and butter at half-past five. I have been walking about.”