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in shabby dinner clothes and sleeked-down dandruffy hair came forward, already disapproving. Through his eyes, she saw a young woman with damp hair, a damp coat, and a stretched smile. For Martha was suddenly bloody-minded, because of this man’s automatic bad manners, though she knew they were the stuff of his life and what he earned his wages for. A subordinate man, a waiter, came to stand by the first, the headwaiter. Together they surveyed her with a cold skill that cracked her into speaking first. ‘I am meeting Mr. Matheson, ’ she said, awkward. The two conferred, in a long silence and a swiff glance. The first man turned away, to other business; and the second, having not said a word, took her, without going through the main room, to a table which was turned to one side. He pulled out a chair in which she would face a wall. He had not asked her to take off her coat. She did so, shrugging it on to the back of her chair. A lean, elderly man, whose whole life had been dedicated to the service of such minutiae, he again flicked his eyes fast over her and again with an arrogance of bad manners that astounded her, so naked did it seem to her. Her sweater and skirt were adequate. But wrong? Why? She did not know, but he did. He left her to wait.
    The place was still half full, since it was early for dinner. The people were middle-aged, or gave an appearance of being so. She saw, glancing with difficulty backwards, that there were two young people, but their youth was damped into the staid middle-aged air of the atmosphere. They, and the waiters, fitted into the décor which was designed, according to unwritten invisible rules, to fit them. The place was muted, dingy, rather dark; and no single object had any sort of charm or beauty, but had been chosen for its ability to melt into this scene. And the people had no sort of charm or flair. Yet, looking closely, things were expensive: money hadbeen spent obviously, and since the war, to keep the restaurant exactly as it had always been: in an expensive shabbiness, dowdiness. The girl-the only one present apart from Martha, wore a black crèpey dress. It was ugly. Martha recognized this dress because before leaving ‘home’ Marjorie had told her what she would need-she gave her a list of clothes she would need, not for utility or warmth, but for occasions. ‘A uniform!’ Martha had exclaimed. This dress was part of that uniform, relating to no standard of charm or sexuality; doing nothing for the girl who wore it: it was a black dress worn with pearls, and it had a cousinship with the restaurant, its furnishings, and the people in it, who, when you looked, were good-looking, even well-built, certainly well-fed and easy. But now Martha could see perfectly well why her clothes, every bit as expensive, and certainly more attractive, that is, if clothes are to be judged by what they can do for the appearance of who wears them, would not do, and why the black dress did: she was not in the right uniform.
    The point was, not a word of what she thought could be told to Henry: he would not understand it: but when she met Jack tonight, she would only need to mention the girl’s dress, her pretty artless face and hair, the dull-flowering wall-paper, the men’s emphatically assured faces-and he would laugh and understand. And Jack would understand perfectly well when she said (though she would not need to say it)-The trouble is, you have to choose a slot to fit yourself to, you have to narrow yourself down for this stratum or that. Yet although the essence of Henry’s relation to me is that I should choose the right slot, find the right stratum, he would not understand me if I said that: he’d be embarrassed, irritated, if I said it.
    Yes, because Jack had chosen a life that freed him, he would understand all this: but he could not understand her other preoccupation, and the trouble was, the only person she had so far met who did, was Marjorie’s sister-Phoebe.
    Henry came in.