Sophia and Francis broke into a run. Down the avenue they ran, between the tombstones, the rain beating in their young faces, on their way to the gates.

When they were seated in the little single-decker bus which runs between Northgate and Enbury Heath, Sophia began to feel apprehensive. They ought not to have run away. There would be a simply frightful row.

Her bursts of bravado usually ended like this; for her courage was of the long-suffering rather than the aggressive kind. Her usual manner was cold and rather severe, and strangers often took her to be an efficient young woman of decided views and character, with a good opinion of herself. But this manner was not due to these qualities at all, but to her extreme concentration on whatever matter she might have in hand.

She had to concentrate because, if she did not, her mind went flying off into dreams. The first lines for poems, airs of music, calm or violent memories, went floating through her mind in a delightful medley, and asked to be followed, and she looked solemn and severe with the effort of not following them.

When she acted rashly, she followed the beckoning of the images and the music in her mind, and temporarily forgot to concentrate on reality. In that moment of relaxation, disaster usually befell her. The folly once committed, she realized what had happened and became penitent and alarmed.

Francis said that he did not care if there was a row; he had had just as much as he could stand of Uncle Preston, and if the old fool didn’t like it, Sophia knew what he could do. ‘They all treat us as though we were still wearing bibs,’ said Francis fiercely, ‘and I’m not going to stand for any more of it.’

They got out at the Turpin Arms, which looks out over the wide wooded expanse of the Heath, and walked down the steep High Street to their favourite Primrose Café; two thin, white-faced, dangerous-looking young creatures. Evening was falling rapidly now; the glimpses of London between the little old houses on the hilltop showed it glittering with lights, and the street lamps here, high over the city, swung in the rainy wind and scattered purple light on the wet pavements.

CHAPTER II

They felt better as soon as they began to climb the stairs which led to the upper dining room. The room was warm and quiet, with a rosy little fire dancing in the basket grate, and no one else was there. Downstairs a party of noisy Jews laughed with their girls, but up here there was no sound except the flutter of the flames.

Sophia and Francis dragged off their caps and coats, and piled them on a chair, and sat down at the table nearest the fire. Sophia saw herself in the old spotted mirror over the mantelpiece, between the advertisements for Kaola and Spearmint which were stuck into its sides. She looked so drawn, so white, with her fair hair dull and ruffled and her lips pinched, that she hardly knew herself.